


Dark Laughter

by FalseRoar



Series: Can You Wake Up? [11]
Category: Who Killed Markiplier? (Web Series), markiplier - Fandom
Genre: Angst and Humor, Blood and Injury, Gaslighting, Gen, Horror, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mark Fischbach Egos, Memory Loss, POV Second Person, POV Third Person, Possession, Post-Who Killed Markiplier?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 14:04:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 32,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20508236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FalseRoar/pseuds/FalseRoar
Summary: Darkiplier is patient, willing to wait as long as it takes to regain Y/N's trust and his former place as head of the ego house. Not to say he doesn't have plans to speed up the process, but he feels he can regain control - until he sees something he cannot explain. Haunted by visions of Y/N, Dark tries to reach out to the others for help or some kind of explanation but finds the damage he has done in the past cannot be easily fixed.





	1. What Dark Saw

Dark paced the halls of the egos’ house. It was a nightly habit he had taken up over the last few months, ever since his exile from and return to the house. Before, he had so much to do: the egos looked to him for guidance, for direction, and he provided it, and more. He was the one with the plans, with goals, with the vision that they could be more than just cheap knock-offs of their creator. They could have been useful. They would have been lost without him in the beginning.

How easily they chose to forget that.

Now, he was tolerated. He was mocked. He was forgotten.

Dark passed by the dark and empty conference room, his reflection in the glass walls catching the double and triple afterimages that followed in his wake as the memory of how the egos currently treated him piled up, one after the other. His reflection caught the moment that a sneer twisted his mouth and the afterimages echoed the gesture.

They might forget, but he wouldn’t.

After all, he knew better than anyone how power shifted, how the right words in the right ears could change everything. And he knew just the person to start with even if it took time. He had been patient before; he could do it again, if it meant regaining control and his rightful place at the head of the house. Then the fun could really start.

A sound that he did not quite catch seemed to answer that thought and Dark looked up and around. He had thought he was alone on this floor, but now he saw a figure standing at the end of the hall. A figure he could recognize anywhere—it was almost as if you had heard him thinking about you.

“Y/N,” Dark started, but his prepared, easy smile died before it even reached his lips.

There was something wrong.

You stood there, at the end of the hall, head bent at an angle Dark now realized wasn’t quite right. While you were too far away for him to make out your face, he could clearly see the scarlet stains on your chest, on your hands, in the drop that fell in the sudden silence.

“Y/N?” Dark moved forward, hand reaching out instinctively, but you turned away from him.

_Why were you walking away?_

Dark’s aura surged around him as he moved forward, allowing him to clear the distance to the end of the hall in the blink of an eye.

And you were nowhere to be seen.

“Darkiplier appears in the middle of the hallway, blocking the Host and Google’s path as he appears to be looking for something. Google begins to speak, but Darkiplier interrupts him and says—”

“Where is Y/N? Which way did they go?” Dark turned toward the stairs, but there was no way you could have made it that far, not that quickly and not in that condition.

“I am no longer allowed to accept queries for information from you,” Google answered in his usual flat monotone. “But it is within my parameters to give you one of these.”

Dark scowled as the android flipped him off but he didn’t have time for this. “Y/N, you must have seen them, they were right here a second ago!”

“Darkiplier is incorrect,” the Host responded. “Y/N is staying at Markiplier’s house tonight.”

“I know what I saw,” Dark said, but that didn’t answer his questions.

What had happened to you? Where did you go? How could you disappear so quickly?

Dark glanced down at the carpet, remembering the blood that dripped from your hand, but there was nothing there.

“Perhaps Darkiplier is seeing things,” Google said. “I am given to understand that human bodies are susceptible to stress, and your current heart rate and blood pressure appears to be well over—”

“I know what I saw,” Dark repeated, his words punctuated by the ring of his aura. “Host, tell him.”

“The Host does not take orders from Darkiplier. The Host does not know what Darkiplier is talking about, and frankly, the Host does not care.”

Google smirked and Dark had a sudden urge to rip the head off the android that he quelled, with effort.

“Something is wrong, if you would just listen to me and get your head out of your—”

The android grabbed Dark’s wrist before he could lay a hand on the Host, the ‘G’ on his shirt glowing as a red light appeared in the brown of his eyes. “Darkiplier is in danger of enacting the Wilford Protocol if he continues on his current action.”

“You actually call it the Wilford Protocol?” Dark asked, his disdain not quite covering up the frustration as he felt the android’s grip tighten. Google was hardly a threat even with all his units gathered together, but if Wilford were to get involved…

“Yes, we do. We find it…amusing,” Google answered, releasing his grip with another grin. “Would Darkiplier like to enact it now?”

“…No.” Dark spat out the word, his aura tossing and heaving in a spiral of red and blue afterimages at the insult to his pride.

He stepped aside and allowed the two egos to pass. To his surprise, the Host did pause and say aloud, “Whatever Darkiplier thinks he saw, it was not Y/N.”

“Yes, you said,” Dark muttered, and watched as the Host and Google walked down the stairs.

Once they were out of sight, he turned again to take in the hallway as a whole. From the direction Google and the Host came from, he could see a long stretch of hall with no room for anyone to hide. Even the walls were bare. A mirror had hung here before, but you had broken that with your arrival over a year ago and the replacement found its way to the first floor after the Host expressed some distaste at the idea of putting it back here. There was no way the Host or Google could have missed you if you went this way.

Dark remembered how he saw you: the tilt of your neck, the blood. He had seen it before, here, over a year ago. Now that he thought about it, even the clothes were the same.

But he knew what he saw.

Dark pulled a cellphone out of his pocket and dialed a number he never expected to call, especially not like this. The voice that answered on the other end was heavy and slow from sleep, but Dark did not waste time on waiting for him to wake up.

“Is Y/N there?”

“What?” Mark asked, barely able to hold back a yawn.

“Is Y/N there? Are they okay?”

“Dark? Is that you?” Suddenly Mark sounded much more awake as he asked, “What’s going on?”

“Just check on them,” Dark said, and as an afterthought added a slightly gentler, “Please.”

On the other end, Mark stood up and made his way across his dark room, Dark’s questions sparking a shot of anxiety even as he said, “They should still be asleep, they went to bed hours ago. Let me check their room first.”

“Where else would they be?” Dark asked, but he sounded more frustrated at waiting than sarcastic.

“Sometimes they sleep in the Barrel,” Mark said, lowering his voice as he made his way down the hall.

“That old van? _Why?_”

“They have nightmares,” Mark said as he stopped outside of your room and knocked gently. When you didn’t answer, he opened the door and peered inside.

At the sight of you deep asleep in your bed he breathed a sigh of relief even though he wasn’t sure why and whispered, “They’re fine, they’re just sleeping.”

He heard an identical sigh on the other end of the line. After a pause, Dark said, sounding much more like his regular self, “What do nightmares have to do with the van?”

Mark started to answer and thought of the first time he found your room empty in the middle of the night. It couldn’t have been more than a month after you “arrived”, and he had seen you emerge from the van often enough in the morning to know where to look.

_“Y/N?” Mark asked as he looked into the back of the dark van._

_You barely stirred at the sound of his voice and he shivered, standing there in the cold garage. How long had you been out here?_

_After a moment to consider, he climbed inside the van and came out a minute later carrying you, his awkward hold still not enough to wake you up completely._

_Or at least, that’s what he thought until a couple of steps away from the garage door, when you suddenly gripped the sleeve of his shirt, twisting it in your hand as you said, “Please.”_

_“Y/N?” Mark tilted his head to look at your face, but your eyes were barely open. You were still dreaming?_

_“Please, I don’t want to go back in the house.”_

Mark still felt the ache in his chest as he remembered how he softly said, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” as he took you back to the van, his reassurances as he found another blanket to keep you warm and you fell back to sleep. You never said anything, and he doubted you even remembered it the next morning, but that was the first and last time he tried to bring you back inside before you were ready.

You shivered in your sleep and Mark remembered exactly who he was talking to. “You should know why. You caused them.”

Before Dark could answer, Mark turned off his phone and went to get another blanket.

On the other end, Dark stared at his phone and felt the circuits crackle and fry from the intense interference of his aura as it spread out and covered the hall.

“I know what I saw,” Dark said aloud to the empty hall, but the third time the words sounded hollow even to his own ears.


	2. I'm Trying

If you were able to describe the dream, you would have said it started with the realization that you were standing in the center of a massive table that stretched away to either side, the walls so distant that they might as well have been on the horizon.

You felt a flash of irritation at first when you recognized the table you were standing on was the Septic egos’ conference room table and that you were once again the victim of Marvin’s shrinking spell.

“Marvin?” You called the magician’s name, but there was no one else in the room. You reached into your pocket for the wallet Abe gave you, but came up empty. No wallet, and no card inside that would save you from this spell.

“Marvin!”

No answer.

You paced the length of the table and arrived at the corner nearest the door, where you called again, for Marvin, for Chase, for Jameson, for any of the Septic egos, but no one came.

One look over the edge of the table and you had to back away and swallow back the swell of fear. Someone would come looking for you eventually, right?

That’s what you told yourself as you paced back and forth over the table, rubbing your hands up and down your arms to try and stay warm, but the movement did nothing to break the chill or stop the goosebumps from spreading.

They didn’t use this room very often, though.

And would they even _know _to look for you?

You shuddered so hard that your teeth clacked together and made up your mind.

At the edge of the table, you found one of the chairs and lowered yourself down, sure that any moment your feet would touch the seat of the chair, but your fingers gave way first and you dropped. A single second and all of the air left your body as you landed in the chair and only halfway to the floor. One more drop to go, but at least there was carpet to break your fall and this time you managed to roll into it.

You stood and dusted yourself off before realizing that the walls had changed. While the table still towered over you, the walls were the glass of the Iplier egos’ conference room. There were no lights on in the hall beyond, and no reply greeted you when you stepped out of the room and called again.

“Host?” You looked in the direction of his recording room, but the light above the door was off. “Wilford? Dr. Iplier?”

You went through almost every name you could think of on the way to the stairs, but the more you called the quieter your voice seemed in the darkness all around. Once, as you reluctantly called for Google, your voice cracked and another shiver shook your body. You thought you even saw wisps of your breath as you spoke, but by the time you reached the stairs it was so cold it hurt to even breathe, much less shout.

You could barely even feel your fingers anymore and sticking your hands in your armpits did little to keep them warm when the cold cut straight to the bone. They felt numb and useless as you lowered yourself down one step and then another, one by one making your slow descent through the silent house. On the last step you slipped and fell onto the polished black-and-white vinyl floor, which only seeped away at what little warmth you had left.

Slowly you stood and started to walk, memory taking you in the direction of the kitchen as you stared down at the ground, all of your effort focused on forcing your cold and aching body to just keep going. Someone, there had to be someone here, there was always—

You stopped short, eyes on the patterned floor as the sheer emptiness and silence of the house around you seemed to crash down with the realization: this wasn’t the same floor as in either of the egos’ houses.

But you knew it all the same.

You looked up and saw that while everything in the distance seemed to fade into darkness, you could clearly make out the chandelier overhead, the round table where you knew an empty vase waited, and in the distance a door that you had stared at for so long, just willing it to open. You turned around and saw another table, and just the edge of a mirror.

_The_ mirror.

_No, no, no, nononono, this was wrong, the house was gone, the mirror was gone, this couldn’t be real—_

Footsteps.

You could hear them getting closer, but when you looked around you couldn’t see who they belonged to.

Who would be here? In this place?

The cold sliced through your lungs as you ran and hid beneath the table, trying hard not to think of the mirror above as you moved close to the wall and hoped it would provide enough cover. There was nothing to hide behind or shield you from sight as you sat down and pulled your legs and arms in close, partially to feel safer and partially to try and stop the shivering.

The footsteps were getting closer. They sounded massive in your ears, and you could feel the reverberations through the floor beneath you.

You saw the shoes and legs approach, their owner hidden by the table overhead, and for a brief moment you thought they might pass. But at the table they paused and turned, toward the mirror.

And then the legs bent and a hand and face came into view. While the clothes may have been different, the face was identical to your own, down to the surprise that crossed the District Attorney’s face until it gave way to relief.

_“There you are.”_

You didn’t hear the voice so much as feel it as the District Attorney reached toward you, gently, with one hand. You felt the warmth of their hand even from a distance, but before they could touch you their hand stopped short, as if hitting an unseen barrier in between you. The frustration in their eyes quickly changed as you both heard the same thing in the otherwise silent house:

A second set of footsteps, thundering as they ran closer.

The District Attorney locked eyes with you again, and you saw a mix of concern and fear for you as they spoke before turning to face whatever was coming.

_“I’m sorry, Y/N. I’m trying.”_

You woke to another room, the darkness broken by the light spilling in from the hall and catching the shape of someone turning away from you.

“Mark?” you asked, your voice slurred.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” Mark said in a whisper. “You just looked cold, so…”

You noticed the blanket that he had thrown over your shoulders and pulled it closer as you mumbled, “Thanks.”

Another shiver shook you, but the blanket was already helping. You heard Mark say something about Chica and felt the dog jump up onto your bed before flopping down so that her back was pressed up against yours. You risked exposing a hand to pet her before returning to the warmth of the blanket, but between the two of them the cold was subsiding.

“You okay?” Mark asked.

“Yeah, just cold,” you said, memory of the dream already long gone besides the lingering sense of cold and unease, neither of which were able to put up an effort against Chica and the blanket. “…You?”

Mark considered mentioning Dark’s call and thought better of it. No point in worrying you, especially since he didn’t even know the reason for the call in the first place. “Yeah, just had to get up and check on something.”

Neither of you commented on why Mark would look in on you, both well aware of your history with trouble sleeping.

“I’ll let you get back to sleep,” he said, telling himself he would talk to Dark in the morning when he had more patience to deal with him. If nothing else, he felt he deserved an explanation in exchange for the lost sleep and brief surge of anxiety the strange call had caused.

“Thanks, Mark,” you said again as he turned away. “…Goodnight.”

By the time he reached the door, you had already fallen into a thankfully dreamless sleep.

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

Outside of your room, Mark shut the door quietly behind him and stood there for a moment, his last words to Dark coming to mind when he spoke about your nightmares: “You should know why. You caused them.”

_You caused them too._

Mark swallowed as the accusation rang through his head.

_Dark isn’t the only one who abandoned them in that mirror for all those years._

“I didn’t know,” Mark muttered aloud.

_Because we all knew that party was going to have a happy ending, right?_

“I’m trying…” He was _always_ trying. Always trying to make up for what he did. That stupid, selfish, bitter act of revenge that managed to hurt every single person in his life he’d ever cared about.

_It will never be enough. They will never be okay, and it’s all your fault._

Mark took a steadying breath.

It wasn’t enough.

He found his phone in his pocket and scrolled through the contacts, looking for anyone who might still be awake. Bob and Wade had work tomorrow, he knew Amy and Ethan would be in bed by now, it was too early for Seán to be up…

_Look at the time. No one’s going to answer, and if they do, they’ll just be mad at you for waking them up._

Mark took another steadying breath and leaned against the wall as he slid down into a sitting position.

And a different kind of thought crossed his mind: _Not as angry as they would be if you didn’t try._

With shaking hands, Mark sent a text and the reply came faster than he expected.

_You ok?_

He typed: _I just need someone to talk to._

He paused, and then remembered that Tyler had seen him at his absolute worst, back when he still went by the name Benjamin. There was no point in holding back, and so he sent another text, and another.

The texts went back and forth and, as Mark eventually began to calm down, he thought he heard a noise down the hall, too faint to make out.

He looked around, but there was no one there.

And, he realized with a growing unease, this was the first time since he closed your door that he actually felt alone in the hallway.

As if someone, or something, had just walked away.


	3. Mirror Images

Dark spent over an hour pacing the third floor of the house, examining every inch of the hall where he thought—where he _knew_ he saw you earlier, allowing his aura to stretch and expand in search of something, anything, to prove that he was right.

But there was nothing, no sense of anything off or out of the ordinary.

In response to his anger, the lights overhead flickered and hummed, any illumination they provided already struggling to do any more than highlight the oppressive darkness that hung heavy in the air for several feet around him.

Dark closed his eyes and breathed out, allowing his aura to recede and the normal colors of the hallway to return.

This was pointless and getting him nowhere. He would get his answers eventually, but not like this. To start, he needed to get away from this area and clear his head.

Dark made his way down the stairs to the second floor, where bedroom doors lined the hall to either side. Most of the rooms were silent and dark at this hour of the night, although Ed Edgar’s snores could be heard long before Dark passed the ego’s room. Blue light came out from beneath a door plastered with stickers of various memes and brand names, Bing no doubt playing whatever battle royale game had caught his attention this week. Dark thought he heard sniffling from behind one of the doors that had yet to be decorated, but when he paused there the noise stopped.

Aside from these small things, the house was relatively quiet, and there was no one to stop Dark on his way to his office, or to interrupt him with some pointless question or remark. It was his own restless thoughts that made him pause at the door, one hand on the doorknob, before continuing on down the hall to the stairs at the other end. Downstairs, Dark saw a single light on in the infirmary and heard the doctor tapping away at his keyboard. In the living room he spotted an ego sprawled out on the couch, their face covered by a book but the suit and cape giving away Silver Shepherd’s identity. His mask lay on the cushion beside him, and Dark briefly considered it before deciding to give the opportunity a pass.

Instead, he made his way to the kitchen, where the only light came from the small bulb above the sink. Soft breathing came from the pantry door in the corner, where Chef Iplier was known to keep a cot despite the ample number of bedrooms upstairs. No one questioned him on that, or anything else the ego was known or suspected to do when left alone here in his domain.

Dark peered out the back window, but the distant forest line was just a suggestion at this time of night. Somewhere out there the King of the Squirrels kept a nest or a tree fort or some kind of hideaway that no one else had been able to find, where he spent most of his nights unless the weather became particularly bad. The last time that happened, Dr. Iplier had taken advantage of the opportunity to, with the combined effort of Google and some of the stronger egos such as Silver Shepherd, “convince” the King to take a rare bath. For their effort, they all earned several scratches and bites, and somehow despite the massive amounts of flea and tick shampoo, the King still came out smelling vaguely of peanuts.

Dark smiled to himself at the memory as he left the kitchen, feeling…more in control of his emotions, at least. Perhaps, and it dealt a severe blow to his pride to admit even in the privacy of his own mind, perhaps the Host and Google were right to dismiss his concerns. What he saw in the hall couldn’t have been real—you were safe and asleep miles away. He told himself that maybe it was a trick of memory or—

Something moved to Dark’s left and he spun around before realizing that he was looking at the wide mirror hanging on the wall. It was a replacement for the one you had broken when you “arrived” last year, but in a rare moment of self-interest, the Host had asked that it not be put back in the same place. He hadn’t explained why, and for several months after he had still gone out of his way to avoid that stretch of hall near the conference room.

Now it hung here on the ground floor, where it made this area a little lighter and provided the egos a chance to check themselves out and make any last-minute adjustments before leaving or joining the others for a meal.

In the relative darkness of the hallway, it took Dark a half second to realize just how wrong the reflection was. There was a door behind him, yes, but it did not have the same shape and make as the front door of the ego house. Black and white checkered tiles in the mirror did not match the flooring behind him, and there was certainly no staircase to his right twisting up and out of sight.

And, more importantly, it was not his own reflection that stared back out at him.

You stood opposite him, your reflection just as he had seen it at the end of the hall earlier: head tilted at a wrong angle, blood staining old clothes he hadn’t seen in over a year, but for a split second he could clearly see your face.

Until a bloodied hand slammed against the other side of the glass.

Dark cried out and backed away, but it was his own reflection looking back at him from the mirror, face pale as he let his outstretched hand drop to his side where it trembled until he gripped it with his other hand. His mirror image betrayed the horror that flashed through his eyes, but he did not see what it turned into when he spun around at the sound from down the hall.

“Who’s there?” Dark asked.

Silence met his question, and continued until he almost doubted what he had heard.

Almost.

Dark did not bother with the stairs, choosing instead to disappear into his aura.

In the empty hallway, something stirred in the mirror and, from a distance, the laugh Dark heard repeated itself, mocking now.

* * *

The Host leaned close to the microphone, speaking low and soft in the complete confidence that it caught every word that flowed through him and swept up his listeners in their wake. And, for one very _special_ listener, was more than just a story.

Tonight, it was his reality.

“—He fumbles with the handle, aware of the footsteps coming ever closer. If this key doesn’t work, there are no second chances for our dear Phillip. After all, we all know second chances are far too kind for what he has done. No, there is only the creature, the manifestation of his wrongs, drawn by the smell of fear that clouds his judgment, creeping ever nearer with every precious second he wastes praying that he chose correctly, it more than ready to—”

The Host paused, aware of the sudden change in the atmosphere of his recording studio. His smile of pleasure quickly turned into a thin-lipped frown, but he recovered quickly and continued, “No, the key fits, the door unlocks, and Phillip is stumbling out into the cold night air, free of the warehouse. He slams the door behind him, but nothing follows. Listeners, let’s leave Phillip alone to his thoughts, to consider what he’s learned this night. He will have more than enough time walking the long miles back into town, assuming he remembers the correct way to go. He is so given to ‘forgetting,’ after all. And I will leave you now, until next time. Good night, my _dearest_ listeners.”

The Host smiled at those last words out of habit, but as he turned off the equipment and removed his headphones to be greeted by a terrible ringing sound, that expression soured.

“The Host is aware that his ‘On Air’ light is still on.”

“You left the door unlocked,” Dark answered.

“Because the Host is aware that Wilford planned to drop by, and he has grown tired of replacing the lock on that door. The Host is also aware that Darkiplier did not use the door, so the point is moot.”

“Then if you’re so _aware_ of everything, you should know why I’m here.” Dark heard his ringing hit a new a pitch and tried to reign his aura in before it damaged the sensitive equipment that filled the studio. A courtesy he hardly thought the ego deserved, but one he attempted all the same.

“The Host is not omniscient,” he answered, but his lips moved briefly before he spoke up again. “Darkiplier saw something again?”

“I saw them, I saw Y/N,” Dark said. “In the mirror, downstairs, and just like before they were—something was _wrong_ with them.”

“The Host has told Darkiplier, Y/N is at Mark’s house, there’s nothing wrong—”

“I know, I called, but that doesn’t change what I _saw_. I want you to look back, right now, and tell me what happened with your narration.”

“Darkiplier does not give the Host orders, not anymore.”

“I’m **_asking_**,” Dark said, baring his teeth at the word. “Host, this is for Y/N—”

“And since when has Darkiplier cared about Y/N?” Bitterness coursed through the Host’s words but it quickly turned to a quiet fury as he said, “Darkiplier has the audacity to be offended by the Host’s words, as if he has not constantly tried to use Y/N for his own benefit, from attempting to take advantage of their visions to nearly getting them destroyed in a vain attempt to save himself—”

“That was Anti—”

“Who you made a deal with in the first place just to get closer to Y/N! You possessed them to try and kill the Host!”

“Please. You and I both know you egos are harder to kill than that. You should know that more than anyone here, _Author._”

The Host reached up, his fingertips brushing against the bandages around his eyes. “The _Host_ is aware that just because we can survive something, it doesn’t mean there aren’t scars left behind. And he has seen so many of the scars that Darkiplier has left upon Y/N.”

“What are you talking about? I never—”

“How many years, trapped in that mirror?” The Host asked aloud. “How long left alone in that house? How many more, left as a splintered and broken echo of themselves? How many sleepless nights since then, how many nightmares? How many memories locked away because of the pain? How deep is the scar left by the face of a friend used to betray them, to take away their very body, only to have it happen _again_? Darkiplier, of all people, should know what that violation of Y/N’s person meant when he used them, and all just for a single act of spite.”

Dark’s aura was silent as it pressed in tight around him, leaving him almost monochromatic as he let those words sink in. His voice was low, controlled, and restrained as he said, “Do you feel proud of yourself, after that little speech? The righteous and put-upon Host, defending his little brothers, defending Y/N from the big bad Darkiplier? As if your hands are clean.”

Dark paced around the recording studio, taking in the equipment as he said, “Such a shame Y/N has never been able to catch your little show, isn’t it? I wonder how they would feel, knowing how you twist your words around your latest ‘characters’, hearing that love of control in your voice as you play with them for your _dear_ listeners. You know it’s funny, that tone you have when you tell a story, from the very first book of the Author’s that I read, I always felt like there was more of _me_ in you than Mark. You used to be my favorite, but I’m sure you knew that.”

“The Host is _nothing_ like Darkiplier.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Dark said with a shrug as he played with one of the dials on a speaker. “But either way, I _respect_ you, Host, and your abilities. That’s why I’ll ask again: what was that _thing_ in the hallway, if it wasn’t Y/N?”

“Earlier, Darkiplier stood alone in the hallway, brooding over his loss of control over the egos.” The Host smirked and continued, “As he walked down the hallway, he looked up and saw…”

The Host frowned and tilted his head. “The Host cannot read what was there. Darkiplier saw something in the mirror later, but again the Host cannot read anything except that Dark was alone with his fear. He…was afraid. He _is_ afraid.”

Dark grasped his hand with the other to still the tremors that ran up and down it as he said, “Your narration is failing you, Host. I wasn’t the only one there, it _looked_ like Y/N, but—”

“But it couldn’t have been them,” the Host finished for him. “Darkiplier appears tired. How long has it been since he slept?”

Dark scowled. “I don’t see how that matters.”

“The Host might think it were Dark’s own guilt playing tricks on his mind, if he were capable of feeling such a thing.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Does Dark ask if the Host means he is incapable of feeling guilt, or expressing the belief that he should have nothing to feel remorse for?”

Dark would not have dignified that with an answer, if he hadn’t heard the small, humorless chuckle that came from the Host. He was _laughing_ at him?

“I know what I’ve done, and I don’t regret a single thing. You never had a problem with it before, when I was the only one looking out for you and the other useless copies. How many of you wouldn’t even be here today if it weren’t for me, making sure _his_ precious fans remembered you?”

“Because it gave Darkiplier pleasure, to be in control. To have so many ‘copies’ of the man he hated dependent on him, in fear of him. Now he cannot accept the fact that the egos no longer need him to survive. How does it feel, to be so powerless and alone, Darkiplier?”

“I am far from powerless,” Dark answered, allowing his aura to seep out from around him and wrap around the ego seated in his chair. Dull, distant creaks came from within as the recording studio became a distant echo of the dark reality stretching around them. “But I’d be more than happy to gag that mouth of yours and let you find out what true helplessness feels like.”

He tilted his head and with a crack of his neck the darkness retreated, leaving the normal studio in its wake. Dark leaned on the desk that separated him from the Host and smiled down at him, but there was no humor in his eyes as he said, “If only Wilford had shot you in the mouth instead.”

The Host rose to his feet, hands planted on the desk as he leaned forward, bandaged eyes meeting Dark’s own as his face twisted with fury.

“Darkiplier shuts his mouth, because the Host is sick and tired of listening to him.”

Dark tried to speak, but his lips refused to part.

“Whatever is haunting Darkiplier, the Host does not care but is sure that he deserves it. He has done **_enough_** to hurt the people of this house for his own selfish reasons, and no ego will help him relieve his own guilt and fear, not anymore. Darkiplier turns away from the Host’s desk and walks out of the studio. He does not return.”

Dark felt his body move without input from his brain, turning and walking out the door just as the Host narrated. The second the door shut behind him he felt the release of the Host’s power, only for it to be replaced by sheer rage.

Every sleeping ego in the house was startled into wakefulness by the terrible ringing and indistinguishable voices that escaped from Dark’s aura until he turned and walked into his own darkness. Once he disappeared, the noise gave way to an uneasy silence as the others waited to see if anything would follow.


	4. Be Good to Yourself

Mark sat alone at the kitchen table, one hand cupped around a mug of coffee that had turned lukewarm and was driving toward cold while he stared at the nearby phone. The kitchen was still and quiet, warmed by the sunlight streaming in through the windows and providing a welcome change after a long and restless night. Even in the morning light and with Tyler’s help last night, Mark still felt like a raw bundle of damaged and fragile nerves, as if any wrong move could send him spiraling back down again.

So maybe trying to call Dark first thing after he made his way downstairs had been a bad idea, even if the call never connected. But he wanted answers, and getting them now while you were still asleep had seemed the best way to do it, so he made another call and Dr. Iplier answered.

“No, I don’t know anything about that,” the doctor had answered, and Mark thought he heard a hint of strain in the ego’s voice as he added, “The Host is saying Dark left the house this morning.”

“He left? Where would he go?”

There was a pause on the other end, and Mark could almost make out the curt tone of the Host’s response if not the actual words before Dr. Iplier said, “Um. He didn’t say. Hold on, let me ask Google.”

There was a pause as the doctor held the phone to his chest, muffling the conversation that followed although Mark clearly heard Dr. Iplier say, “I am _not_ going to repeat that.”

When Dr. Iplier returned, he sounded more tired than ever as he said, “We don’t know, but this isn’t the first time Dark’s gotten mad and disappeared. For all we know he just goes into that other place of his until he calms down, but he always comes back eventually.”

As much as they wished he wouldn’t, Mark thought to himself, but he asked, “Does anyone know why he was upset?”

Another pause.

“Stress?” Dr. Iplier sounded unsure even as he repeated the word and then sighed. “Mark, can I let you go? The Host…overdid it this morning and I really need to check his eyes and change these bandages.”

“Sure,” Mark said and let the doctor hang up on him.

Leaving him staring at the phone and with more questions than he started out with.

Clearly, something was going on at the ego house, but the more Mark thought about it, the less certain he was that he could do anything about it. It sounded like the trouble was centered on Dark, as it usually was, so if he was out of the picture for the moment, then maybe Mark could wait and let the egos calm down before trying to get in the middle of it.

_You would just make things worse, anyways._

Mark brushed the thought away when he heard footsteps on the stairs alongside the clatter of claws and managed a smile as Chica came barreling into the kitchen to greet him ahead of you.

“Look who finally dragged themselves out of bed,” he said as you went straight for the waiting coffee pot.

“You’re one to talk,” you answered. Once you poured yourself a cup and turned around to face him, Mark was sharply reminded of so many mornings in his college days, when he would come out of his room to find you chatting with Damien, leaning against a counter and hugging a mug or glass of some kind to you as if it held the secret to overcoming yet another long night caught up in studying or working or whatever project you thought worth dedicating more time and energy than you had to yet again. Even if you didn’t remember those days, some of those old habits still came through in the most unexpected moments. Usually when he had no idea how to respond to them, like now.

“You look as tired as I feel,” you said, snapping Mark out of his thought. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just a rough night,” he said, not quite making eye contact with you as you stared at him over your coffee. “You?”

“I slept fine,” you said, but the yawn that immediately followed said otherwise. “Still too tired to figure out what this text message from Wilford is supposed to mean. You got any idea?”

You walked over and showed Mark your phone, and this close he couldn’t help but notice the red in your eyes, highlighted by the faint circles underneath. He seriously doubted you “slept fine”, but didn’t push as he took your phone and looked at the text message in question.

“…This is just a bunch of emojis.” Mark started to scroll up and caught himself in time. “What were you two talking about before this?”

“Nothing, he just sent me this out of the blue this morning,” you said, sitting down at the table next to Mark. “Normally he just calls, if he even has the patience for that. Every other text from him is just pictures of cute animals he’s seen, or memes Bing sent him that he doesn’t understand.”

You paused and added, “At least, I don’t think he understands them? I don’t know, it’s Wilford.”

“Well, there’s your answer,” Mark said, but he looked at the line of emojis all the same. Aside from a few random ones thrown in, such as a winky kissy face and a knife emoji, they were all animals, as if Wilford had just gone to that section and started typing randomly. Everything from a lion and monkey to a zebra and a chicken. “_Oh_, maybe he wants to go to the zoo with you?”

“Yeah, like we’re allowed back in there,” you said, taking your phone back and frowning down at the message. You were fairly sure that if he was talking about the zoo, there definitely would have been a penguin surrounded by red “no” symbols or something.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“…Well, you know Wilford, he’s been kicked out of just about everywhere,” you said, suddenly _very_ focused on your phone and not looking Mark’s way at all.

“But you said ‘we.’”

“And I’ve reminded him about a hundred times we’d go somewhere tomorrow, maybe take Eric with us if he feels like it, and there’s no way he’d want to go to the zoo.”

He started to point out that you still hadn’t actually answered the question when his own phone rang. A picture of Amy popped up and as he lunged for his phone Mark saw you grin out of the corner of his eye.

“Hey Amy,” he said, his attempt to sound cool failing when you laughed.

“Hey Mark,” she said, but even over the phone Mark could hear her concern. “I just talked to Tyler, is everything okay?”

“Yeah, just give me a moment,” Mark said, trying to maintain the calm and cool tone as he stood and walked out of the room.

You didn’t look up from your phone, still trying to make heads or tails of the text message. Maybe Mark had been right the first time; it wasn’t the weirdest thing Wilford had sent you, after all. You backed out of the message to check the other one you had received this morning.

_Looks like rain tonight. Are you still up for it?_

You looked at the bright sunlight streaming in and checked the weather app on your phone.

After a moment of hesitation, you sent a text back: _It’s just a stakeout, right?_

The response:_ Shouldn’t even have to leave the car. Might not even go that late, but thot you should know._

You stared at that typo for a second before another message came from Abe:

_*thought_

You smiled and responded:_ It’s only rain. I’ll be fine._

His only response was a time followed by a line of emoji, starting with a car and rain drops before devolving into some winky faces, a couple of detective emojis, a flashlight, cameras, and other random emojis including for some reason a pineapple.

When Mark returned to the kitchen, he found you still on your phone, your gaze distant as the screen started to darken.

“Y/N?”

“Hm?” You blinked and looked at him just as the screen went dark and locked. “Oh, sorry, I was just looking at the weather for tonight.”

“Yeah, we’re supposed to get a lot of rain,” he said. “You know how it is in LA, either none at all or all at once.”

You smiled, but Mark noticed that you still opened your phone and looked at the weather app again as if to confirm what you had just seen as you asked, “How’s Amy?”

“Good,” Mark said, and added, “Great. We’re thinking about spending the day together, just taking a break to unwind.”

And even just saying the words, Mark realized how much he was longing for just that. Some time to clear his head, that’s all he needed.

The rest of the morning and the drive into town was uneventful, but as you and Mark waited on the street corner outside of the parking garage, he felt the need to say again, “You can come with us, if you want to.”

You blinked and looked at him, once again as if you were returning from somewhere miles away to say, “Nah, I’m fine. I promised Abe I’d hang out with him on his stakeout, remember? Besides, you and Amy should have some alone time together.”

Mark remembered, but that didn’t mean he was thrilled at the idea of you going on a case with the Detective. “Dr. Iplier said you should be relaxing and trying to de-stress—this sounds like not that. Besides, I don’t see why he needs company, if it’s just to watch a building.”

“Says the guy who likes to have someone else in the room with him while he’s editing his videos so he doesn’t feel lonely,” you said.

“Well, that’s just completely the same thing and not at all helping my argument,” Mark said, earning a chuckle from you even as he felt a stab of embarrassment. After all of that time with a shard of your mirror in his recording room, it _did_ feel weird to be alone in there again. It was too quiet, or at least that’s what he told you the first time he invited you to hang out in the room while he worked, even if it was just to read or play a game of your own on the other computer. He was saved from further comment when he spotted a familiar face in the crowd and waved, jumping up and down as if she hadn’t already spotted them. “Amy! Over here!”

As she made her way closer, Mark leaned over to you and whispered, “Between you and me, I think I love her. Keep it a secret, okay?”

“I don’t know, Amy’s pretty smart. I _think_ she might already know,” you said and he laughed.

Mark was so focused on sweeping Amy up into a hug and talking to her that he failed to notice when the Detective arrived. He just turned around one moment and Abe was there, laughing and chatting with you like he had always been there.

Abe’s smile faded slightly when he caught Mark’s stare, but he was polite enough greeting Amy before saying, “Well, Partner? You ready to go?”

“Hang on Abe, can I talk to you for a minute?” Mark said, the question slipping out as soon as he thought it. “Privately?”

“Uh, sure,” Abe said, with a side glance at you before he followed Mark a short distance away.

As they walked away, Mark heard Amy whisper something to you before a laugh you couldn’t stop in time slipped out. He tried hard not to think about that and focus on what he was actually going to say, but once they were out of earshot Abe was the first to speak.

“Are you okay Mark?”

“What, did Tyler talk to everyone this morning?” Mark asked weakly.

Abe frowned. “No? You just look off today. Is something going on?”

“I’m just…” Mark struggled for words to describe even half of what had been running through his mind since that call from Dark last night, and settled for, “Nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”

“…Yeah, I get that,” Abe said. The detective reached into a jacket pocket and pulled out a cigarette, but with a glance in your direction he seemed to think better of it and put it back. “We’ve all got our demons. I know how much I need someone to snap me out of it when I start to fall back into those old roles we used to play. Listen, Mark, if you ever need help, don’t be afraid to ask. Got it?”

“That has to be the third time I’ve heard that today,” Mark said. He rubbed at the side of his neck, brushing away just one of so many old pains. “Thank you. But I came over here to ask you to keep an eye on Y/N.”

“I always do that,” Abe said. “Can’t take my eyes off them.”

There was a small pause.

“In a good way.”

Mark winced and gave a hissing exhale before saying, “Yeah, not making it any better. How long is this stakeout supposed to go for?”

Abe shrugged. “No clue, but I’ll bring them home once we’re done. Safe and sound, promise.”

He put a reassuring hand on Mark’s shoulder and they went back to rejoin you and Amy, where you were laughing over the mannequin display in a nearby store’s window. As you turned back around to face them, Mark caught a glimpse of your reflections in the glass and stopped short, feeling the air leave his lungs as quickly as if he had just been punched in the stomach.

“Mark?” you asked and he blinked, the memory of what he had seen gone but leaving behind a deep uneasiness. You stepped back in surprise when Mark suddenly moved toward you before leaning into his hug.

“Take care of yourself, okay?” Mark said. It was with a wrench of effort that he let go and watched you walk away with the Detective.

He startled when Amy slipped her hand into his and then relaxed, even managing a smile. He didn’t know why he had said it, or why it felt so important to tell you that before you walked away. But then he also didn’t expect it to hurt when you held the hug for just a breath longer to add, “Same goes for you, Mark. Be good to yourself today.”


	5. Pointless Things

Dark breathed in deeply and held it for several seconds before slowly exhaling. In the morning light any aura or visual disturbances around him faded, and as he calmed down, they seemed to disappear entirely.

He wasn’t sure why he chose to come here, or how many hours he wasted in his own realm in a pointless fury that only escalated the more he thought about his last encounter with the Host. How he had used that narration of his to control him.

_Him._

That shouldn’t have even been possible, and yet he’d been dismissed from the recording studio like a disobedient child.

Another deep breath, taking in the brisk scent of pine needles and the heavy, low perfume of wildflowers that crept up in the tall grass all around. Out here, the ringing from his aura was faint, the crack and groans mingling with the shaking and creaks of the trees all around as they bent with the occasional gust of wind.

Another exhale and he opened his eyes to take in the cabin. It had always had the appearance of a place abandoned and neglected, even when the Author made frequent use of it. Ever since he called himself the Host he had refused to come here, but Dark had found it useful, on occasion, for some of his personal affairs.

He did not walk inside, but instead made his way around the cabin until he found the place where a small rosebush had been planted. It was near a corner where it benefited from the shelter of the cabin, receiving just enough light and shade to begin to perk up since its transfer a few months ago. A few exploratory tendrils had started to make their way up the wall of the cabin and one or two hopeful buds had even started to appear, but he doubted they would make it before the summer heat. Perhaps the fall, then.

He studied the plant and knelt, careful not to let his knee actually touch the ground and stain his pants.

_What a pointless thing._

Dark frowned and placed his fingertips on one of the bulbs, allowing his aura to spread out over it in thin wisps of darkness flecked with red and blue undercurrents.

_Why do you even bother?_

Dark’s aura grew stronger, briefly, before he could stop himself. When he drew his hand back, the bulb appeared blackened around the edges as if touched by flame.

_No control. No wonder the egos don’t respect you anymore._

A branch broke and Dark rose up and spun around, only to relax when he saw the familiar red cape and golden crown catching the sunlight.

“You again,” Dark said. “Do you always come out this far in the forest?”

The King of the Squirrels ran his fingers through some of the peanut butter smeared across his face, but it was clearly in need of a new coat. “Only when one of my subjects say they’ve seen someone. You, uh, I didn’t expect you to be back here so soon.”

“Just…checking on things,” Dark said, moving in front of the bush to hide the damaged bulb. He noticed that the ego kept to the edge of the tree line and had made no sign of moving closer; in fact, he shifted often on his feet as if ready to dart behind or even up the nearest tree at any second. “Has anyone else come by here recently?”

The King shook his head. “No, just you, just me. No one really cares about this place anymore.”

Dark looked over his shoulder at the cabin and said, “I happen to enjoy abandoned places. They remind me how much I have to be _grateful_ for.”

The King did not answer and Dark sighed, realizing that reference was wasted.

“Do you have nothing better to do?” Dark asked.

“Yep, just gathering everyone together before tonight,” the King answered, gesturing up at the sky. Dark followed his hand and saw the clouds forming on the horizon, but they were still a long way off. When he looked back at the King, he saw a squirrel peering out from beneath the king’s cape, another sitting on his shoulder, and a third chattered away near his foot.

“Yes, I suppose it does take time to gather all your loyal subjects together,” Dark said, sure that his sarcasm would go over the ego’s head. “All the more reason to leave, now.”

He turned away, expecting the King to take the first excuse to run, and began to walk around the cabin again. Perhaps it was time to go inside, see what remained here.

“The door’s locked,” the King offered helpfully when Dark tried the handle, and to his consternation he realized that the ego was now hovering around his elbow even though his subjects had decided to use their common sense and stay back at the trees. “Maybe you could break a window?”

“I’m not—_Why_ would I break a window?” Dark asked.

The King shrugged and Dark sighed, again. For such a seemingly weak and pliable character who cringed every time Dark looked at him wrong, the King was one of the few egos still willing to approach him on a regular basis, as though any scrap of a survival instinct he had was solely focused on the squirrels. He also had a fantastic ability to ignore suggestions, as well as any kind of order, now that Dark thought about it. There was a reason he had never bothered with the ego, and it wasn’t just because he seemed utterly pointless.

“There’s a key, somewhere,” Dark said, but he hardly needed it to get inside. Still, if he went in, he had no doubt the ego would follow, in his own destructive way. “Why are you still here?”

“Monkey Joe, Jr., said you looked lonely,” the King said, and it bothered Dark on a deeply personal level that he knew the King was talking about one of his squirrels.

“Monkey Joe, Jr., can stuff his tail in his mouth for all I care,” Dark muttered. “And I am not lonely. I came out here to _be_ alone.”

The King thought about it for a moment before pulling his cape aside to whisper into it. A squeak followed and he said, “Sorry, he meant it wasn’t good for you to be alone. Squirrel to English is a little hard sometimes.”

“I can imagine.”

Again, Dark’s sarcasm went unnoticed as the King smiled brightly and pressed his nose against the glass window in the door, leaving streaks of peanut butter in his wake. “So what’s in here?”

“None of your business,” Dark said, dragging him away. “Didn’t you say you had to gather your subjects?”

“Oh, right!” The King sniffed the air and sent the sky a meaning look before he said, “You know, you could come with me and help out—”

“Hard pass.” Dark saw that the ego was going to push further and added, “I’m going to walk back to the house now.”

He could use his aura and be back there in a second, but Dark preferred to take his time. Fortunately, the King did not offer to come with him, but Dark suspected that there were more than the usual number of squirrels on his way back. Or perhaps he was being paranoid. What was the normal number of squirrels? The things seemed to be everywhere.

Dark shook his head and tried to focus on other things. Such as that his conversation with the King of the Squirrels made it occur to him that there were other egos besides the Host and Google and Dr. Iplier. Less useful ones, to be sure, but the younger ones might be more open to listening to him. At the very least, they weren’t the ones who had led the turn on him; perhaps he could find some to be more pliable or even sympathetic. He just needed to make someone _listen._

With that goal in mind, when Dark returned to the house he sought out the newest ones first, the ones who hadn’t even been there for his fall from grace. After all, Eric was so ready to please, and had been willing to speak with him before.

Except he couldn’t get more than two stuttering words out of the boy before Google and Bim appeared.

“Come on now, I told you I’d show you around the studio today, remember?” Bim said cheerfully. “You’re one of us, you’re practically made for the camera.”

“I, uh, actually would prefer not—Okay,” Eric said weakly as Bim began to drag him away.

Google, the red-shirted unit, made no effort with excuses, instead just choosing to glare at Dark suspiciously before falling in the wake of the other two.

Well, Dark told himself, even if he did get Eric to believe him, he would be too much of a wreck to speak up to the others. The other one though, he had no trouble making himself heard.

And, apparently, Randal Voorhees (no relation) had no trouble listening to the others.

“Nah, see, I know what you’re about, if you know what I’m talking about,” Randal said as soon as Dark started. “These guys told me, how youse gets into people’s head and fool around, and I ain’t okay with that.”

“I don’t…fool around with anything,” Dark said. “If you would just _listen_, there is something going on and you egos need to—”

“Nah, nah, nah, I’m nobody’s fool. I may look stupid, but I’m from New York, and we don’t fall for nothin’.”

“You were created for a charity livestream in LA, you have never been to the real New York once in your short, pitiful life,” Dark said.

Surprisingly, that didn’t help his argument, and eventually Randal wandered away to the relief of Dark’s eardrums.

“Hey, I’m up for a listen,” Bing said, popping up just as Dark started to rub his ears.

“No, I’m done,” Dark said. He could feel the headache starting behind his eyes and realized that he really didn’t have the anything for this right now.

“But, no, I’m good at listening, and searching if you want it, I can get you information,” Bing said pitifully as Dark walked away. He sighed and dropped his skateboard on the ground. “Man, every time.”

Dark made his way to the office, uncertain if he actually walked the entire way or just used his aura. Either way, once he was back in his room, he immediately locked the door and pulled off his jacket before throwing it over the back of the couch. After that, he went through the familiar gestures of unbuttoning his sleeves and taking off his shoes, and the other little things he used to relax when there was no image to maintain.

And then he stretched out on the couch and closed his eyes with a long, slow sigh.

Maybe, just a moment to himself, just a short rest, and he could start again.

He felt the couch cushion under his head sink slightly from a weight on the edge of it.

The whisper of breath across his skin.

The faint scent of blood.

Dark’s eyes flashed open to meet yours as you leaned over him, one bloodied hand reaching for his throat. His aura lashed out from instinct to send the body flying backwards until it collided with the fireplace on the other side of the room and slumped to the ground.

Dark stared at the figure for several seconds, breath coming in rapid bursts until the reality of who he was looking at came crashing in.

“…Wilford?”

The man groaned before sitting up and rubbing at the back of his head.

“Well, someone’s a grumpy Gus when he’s woken up from his nap,” Wilford said, but his joking tone was weaker than his normal bluster as he leaned back against the empty fireplace.

“Are you okay?” Dark said, rising to help Wilford up to his feet only to be waved off. “I didn’t mean to, I thought—"

Those suspenders, that ridiculous pink mustache, those eyes, there was absolutely no way Dark could have mistaken him for you no matter how tired he was. And that didn’t change what he had almost done.

“Takes more than that to knock me down,” Wilford said, then looked around at his seat on the ground. “Well, for very long, anyways.”

He eased himself up to his feet and rolled his shoulders back as if working out a kink after taking a blow that would have sent one of the egos to the infirmary. As for a normal person…

Wilford paused in his stretching and studied Dark for a moment before asking, “What did you think?”

“I thought…I thought you were…” Dark looked at his door. He had locked it, he knew he had, but that never stopped Wilford before. He shut it and stood there for a moment, his hand on the doorknob. The knob rattled and he realized that his hand was shaking again. “I thought you were Y/N.”

He continued before Wilford could answer, not turning around to look at the man’s reaction as he said, “But I could see their eyes, and there was nothing there. And I just—”

He swallowed and said, “But it was just a dream. Please, Wilford, don’t tell the others about this. If they knew, they might…take it the wrong way. They already believe I have less than kind intentions toward Y/N. Or they might…”

Or they might ask the same thing Dark was asking himself: _what if that had really been you?_

“Just a dream, hm? If you say so.”

Dark heard something off in the tone of Wilford’s voice, and when he turned around, he saw the flash of pink in the man’s eyes before it disappeared, leaving them their normal dark brown.

“Wilford, have you noticed anything off about Y/N? Or seen anything…unusual?” Dark asked.

Wilford thought and then shrugged. “Not sure I have the most up-to-date definition of ‘unusual’, but the Y/N I’ve seen has been okay, if tired a lot. They’ve just been only half their usual self lately.”

Dark nodded, unsure what else he had been expecting. He couldn’t blame you for being tired, considering how much time and effort you had been putting into helping out the egos recently. He knew how much of a drain it had been on _him_, and you actually cared what happened to them.

“What about you?” Wilford asked, moving closer to try and look into Dark’s eyes. “What have _you_ been seeing?”

“…It doesn’t matter,” Dark said, walking past Wilford to sink back down on the couch. “Whatever it is, it’s not real. It can’t be.”

He felt Wilford staring at him and after an entire minute of silence broke and asked, “Why did you come in here, Wilford?”

“Hm? Oh, just wanted to check in, maybe borrow your office to get some real work done on these scripts I’ve had hanging around. You don’t mind, do you?” Wilford asked, but he was already in Dark’s chair, a pile of papers that Dark hadn’t noticed before sitting in front of him.

“…I have never once seen you actually use a script,” Dark said.

“First time for everything!” Wilford declared.

And less than a minute later, he was balling up papers and using Dark’s trash bin to play some paper basketball. Dark couldn’t say he was surprised by anything more than that it took him that long to get bored, but he said nothing as he watched the man twitch his mustache back and forth while lining up the shot.

The Wilford Protocol, Google had called it last night. Wilford Warfstache, the one man who could send Dark straight back into that purgatory of a sugary swirled pink and yellow mad dream of a reality he could tap into just as easily as Dark used the shadows that surrounded him. They trusted a madman with a very thin grasp of gun safety or the concept of death in general to keep him in line.

“Why?” Dark asked aloud.

“I think I put a little too much spin on that one,” Wilford answered as he balled up another script page. “Hang on, I got this one.”

“Why do the egos trust you?” Dark asked, once Wilford proved that he did not have that one. “You get along with them so easily.”

“Everyone likes me,” Wilford said with absolute confidence. He paused. “Well, aside from one or two exes. And maybe their significant others.”

“Even Y/N seems fond of you.”

“Well, why wouldn’t they be?” Wilford asked. “I am _the_ Wilford Warfstache, you know.”

Dark paused, waiting to see if it would sink in.

The silence stretched on, broken only by Wilford crushing another sheet of paper in his hands, and the unspoken words between them.

_You did this._

_Do you know how much they hate you?_

_The only reason anyone keeps you around is because you’re a funny, broken, pitiful excuse for a man._

_Wilford killed—_

“I know what I did,” Wilford said softly.

“What?” Dark stared at Wilford. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Who said I was talking to you?” Wilford asked. He grinned and jumped up to his feet. “Come on, let’s get out of this stuffy room! No wonder you’re having nightmares, all cooped up in a place like this!”

“Wil, no,” Dark started, but Wilford had him over a shoulder in an instant and was striding straight toward the door. “Wait, the—**_Ow!_”**

Wilford winced in sympathy when he heard Dark’s skull connect with the top of the door frame, but it didn’t slow him down for very long as he continued on down the hall. “No point in wasting time on scripts when we can just turn that camera on and work some magic.”

“Does that magic involve treatment for a concussion?”

He only relented and put Dark down on the stairs. Even then, Wilford kept him in a vice grip that was almost impossible to escape from, not that Dark didn’t try until he saw the pink tint in Wilford’s eyes. He had seen that look too many times before, and what it could lead to if left to himself.

With that thought in mind, Dark stopped struggling. If it meant keeping an eye on Wilford, he would allow himself to be dragged into whatever ridiculous plan he had in mind.

And Wilford was willing to do quite a lot of things if it meant getting Dark as far away from the office and the thoughts lurking there as possible.


	6. Sleepy Stakeout

“You awake over there, partner?”

You blinked and came back from whatever place your head had been in, but when you opened your mouth to respond a huge, ear-popping yawn escaped instead. “…Yes?”

You took another long sip from the warm cup clasped in your hands in the hopes it might help and Abe raised an eyebrow.

“How many coffees is that now?” he asked.

“…Enough,” you said, defensive even though you suspected that it really wasn’t enough. “You want me to stay awake for this stakeout with you, right?”

“It’s not even three in the afternoon!”

“Really? It looks darker than that,” you said, leaning forward to try and get a better look at the sky through the windshield of Abe’s car. Really, when was the last time he washed this thing?

While you studied the dark clouds forming overhead, the Detective studied you. His attention was supposed to be on the building just down the street, a mom and pop jewelry shop where all signs pointed his guy was going to hit next, but these few hours had been long enough to notice you weren’t quite running at full speed.

“Having trouble sleeping?” he asked, when another yawn forced its way out. “You, uh, still having those nightmares?”

“No, not really,” you answered. You glanced at him before setting your eyes on the shop he was supposed to be watching as you added, “I feel like I’ve been sleeping better than ever the past couple of weeks, but I’m still tired all the time.”

You couldn’t even remember the last time you had spent the night in the Barrel to escape the feeling of the house closing in on you, or roamed around the egos’ house until Wilford found you and dragged you into some crazy scheme of his. Now he had to come to your room and drag you out of bed, which meant the Jims had more incriminating footage of you in your pajamas than you really liked to think about.

“Well, no surprise, it seems like you’re running after those Mark lookalikes all the time these days,” Abe said. “Too much time in that insane asylum’s bound to run you into the ground eventually.”

You shrugged, but didn’t answer. It was the same thing Mark said when you mentioned you were feeling tired the other day and Dr. Iplier couldn’t find anything physically wrong, and the reason they insisted you take a break at his house. But you enjoyed spending time with the egos, and now that they weren’t keeping you occupied most of the time you just felt even more tired and empty.

Abe leaned back against the driver’s door as he sat twisted in his seat, no longer even pretending to be watching the shop. “But no more nightmares. That’s got to be a good thing, right?”

“I mean, yeah, of course,” you answered, but you could feel Abe’s eyes on you. “It’s just…Those aren’t the only things that have gone away. I haven’t had any…’visions’ lately, or felt the District Attorney in a while.”

There was a pause before Abe said, “But you _are_ the DA. Or, were. Pretty sure you can’t claim the office anymore.”

“I know, I mean…the person who remembers everything before the party. Before the manor. _That_ person. I know they’re me, but they’ve always felt like a, I don’t know, other me.” You paused to rub at your face. This was going about as well as it went when you tried to talk to Dr. Iplier about it last week. “But those visions, even the occasional memory, they always felt like they came from them, and now they’re just…gone.”

Abe paused. He had never been really comfortable with the whole visions and magic or whatever it was side of what happened back at the manor, and honestly trying to make sense of any of it tended to send him back into drinking and narrating to himself on the bad days, but you clearly thought there was something wrong here, even if he didn’t understand it.

“When’s the last time you had one of these visions?” he asked.

“I don’t know, maybe before everything with Anti—” You stopped and considered for a moment before adding, “No, I feel like I saw something back at the beach house, maybe?”

You paused, lips tight as you tried to remember. It had been when you couldn’t see and stumbled, and Dark caught you. There had definitely been something then, hadn’t there?

Silence filled the car as you struggled and failed to remember what you had seen in that moment until you sighed and admitted, “Dr. Iplier says they—the District Attorney—the way I feel like they’re a different person is just some kind of coping mechanism, something I needed to make sense of everything after I came through the mirror. But I don’t…”

You trailed off and Abe saw how your eyes seemed to fade as if your thoughts were a hundred miles away from this car and this stakeout, and he should really be paying attention to that shop right now. He glanced in the direction of the jewelry shop, partially to ease his mind at that thought, but more than a little to give him some time to think of what to tell you. If the doctor was right, then maybe it was a good thing you couldn’t feel the “DA” anymore, but he somehow doubted that’s what you wanted to hear right now.

_“…It looks like me.”_

“What?” Abe tore his eyes away from the shop to look your way and saw you blink away that glazed look in your eyes.

“What?” you looked back at him, then at the shop. “Did you see something?”

“No, I—I thought I heard…” Abe paused as you yawned again. “Do you want me to drive you back home? You really don’t have to—”

“No, of course not,” you said, making an effort to sit up straighter in your seat. “I told you I’d be here with you for this, and I will. Are _you_ sure you’ve got the right place this time?”

“Stake out the wrong place once—”

“It was three times,” you said, cutting off the Detective’s grumble before he could really get started. “How do you even get Beverly Hills and Koreatown mixed up?”

“Okay, that second time had nothing to do with a stakeout and everything to do with terrible directions to what turned out to be a fantastic noodle place, you have to admit that.”

“But we weren’t trying to find noodles, we were trying to find an informant.”

“Who was really happy when we brought food.”

“Because you made her wait so long.”

You argued and joked back and forth like that for another hour or so before the car fell into another peaceful quiet, different than the silence Abe usually filled with his own voice when he had to sit through this kind of thing on his own. He started to say something when he spotted a familiar face down the street, just past the jewelry shop.

Abe glanced over at you and realized that you had drifted off to sleep at some point and now sat almost curled up in the passenger seat with your head resting against the base of the window.

You jerked awake when the car hit a particularly rough bump in the road and sat up, startled to see that the car was moving. You were also surprised to feel the comforting weight of the detective’s coat thrown over your chest and arms. “Abe? How long have I been asleep?”

“Oh, not long? Maybe five or ten minutes?”

He sounded as though he were asking someone else, and when you followed his gaze to the rear view mirror you turned around to find a complete stranger in the backseat nodding in agreement with that guess

“…Uh, Abe?”

“That’s our perp, snagged him waiting around the employee’s entrance hoping to get in the next time some poor sap went on their break,” Abe said. He glanced in the mirror again, locking eyes with the sour-faced young man sitting slumped in the backseat who gave you a half wave with his cuffed together hands. “Probably shouldn’t have used the same trick again, huh?”

“…Why is his mouth covered in duct tape?”

“Because _someone_ doesn’t appreciate witty wordplay and frankly brilliant metaphors.”

In the backseat, the crook rolled his eyes and gave a muffled response to that which, while you couldn’t understand a word of it, the Detective seemed to.

“_Hackneyed?_ Listen, Mr. English major—"

“Keep your eyes on the road!”

You grabbed the wheel and pulled the car back into its lane as horns blared outside.

Abe, a little paler now, swallowed and took over driving again while some muffled whimpering came from the back. He only had one more corner to turn before rolling to a stop outside the police station, where he had more than his fair share of fun dragging the guy in the back up the steps.

You chose to use the time to stretch and lean against the car, hoping some fresh air would wake you up. A brisk wind was starting to pick up now, a welcome change to the stale heat, but it didn’t seem to help. By the time Abe returned, you still felt like the effort of just standing here leaning against the car was almost too much for you.

“Abe, I’m so sorry,” you said as he leaned against the opposite side of the car to look at you over the roof. “If something had happened while I was asleep—Well, something _did_ happen, and I just slept right through it!”

“Eh, I knew I could handle a petty thug like that on my own,” Abe said, waving a hand.

“But I wish you had woken me up at least, I could have helped.”

Abe chose not to tell you that he had considered it, and decided you probably needed the sleep. He also chose to leave out the many threats he gave the thug about what would happen if he were to wake you up, which may or may not have led to the duct tape situation.

“You told me you haven’t been feeling well, so it’s on me,” Abe said. “Come on, I think it’s time we go see that doctor of yours.”

You were tempted to argue, but a tremble ran up and down your spine that had nothing to do with the wind. Instead, you pulled Abe’s coat closer and said, “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

The drive to the ego house was uneventful, not that you remembered much of it. Every time Abe glanced your way, he saw you sitting up and awake, more or less, but your gaze was often hazy and distant. The few times he tried to start up a conversation, it took multiple attempts to get a response out of you, and even then, they tended toward one or two word responses.

At the house and inside the infirmary, Dr. Iplier shone a light in both your eyes before pulling the thermometer out of your mouth to check it.

“Yes, there is a slight fever,” he said. “But it’s only 99 degrees Fahrenheit, nothing to be too concerned about considering nothing else seems to be wrong.”

You nodded and clenched your teeth as another chill ran down your spine.

“Still, I would like you to rest here in the infirmary where Google and I can keep an eye on you to make sure you drink enough water.”

You glanced over at the android checking one of the shelves, but Google seemed less than interested in what was going on around your end of the infirmary.

“And that has nothing to do with a chance a certain Warfstache might try to drop in on me if I’m in my room?”

Despite your joke, the doctor seemed to notice how you were less than thrilled about sleeping here in the infirmary as he pulled back the sheets on one of the beds. “Don’t worry, this will pass before long with rest and plenty of fluids. A fever like this is just your body’s way of fighting off infections. It is nothing to be concerned about.”

That last sentence in particular seemed to be more directed at the detective, who took the hint and said, “Well, I should get home before the rain starts. You get some rest, okay, partner? Never know when I’ll need you for another case, after all.”

He smiled at you as you handed his coat back to him and nodded to the doctor before making his way out of the infirmary, pausing to muss up Google’s hair on his way out. Meanwhile, you resigned yourself to a night in a hospital bed, not that it took you long to fall into another dreamless sleep again after Abe left. You barely remembered downing the glass of water the doctor handed you or the medicine that went with it before your eyes closed.

You were just so tired.


	7. Just Be Happy

“Some time has passed since Darkiplier left the Host’s recording studio, after so rudely interrupting the Host’s show.” The Host spoke aloud to the empty room, even though he had not bothered with turning on his equipment again after returning from the infirmary with new bandages. He had considered resuming the show, but the energy required to send Dark out of his studio had taken too much out of him to do it justice. Dr. Iplier also told him to rest, but the Host’s narration kept drifting back to their argument.

“Darkiplier was—is—agitated by something the Host cannot sense with his usual methods.”

The Host tapped his fingers against the hard wood of the desk.

“Y/N rides with Markiplier into town, where they will join the Detective on one of his stakeouts. This will be more successful than some of their recent ‘cases’, and will prove to not be a hazard to Y/N. Markiplier…is also agitated.”

The Host’s tone changed as he took in this new information and he followed that thread, narrating aloud, “Mark hopes that spending time with Amy will allow him to clear his mind. He had very little sleep last night, as Darkiplier’s call indirectly led to him spiraling into old thoughts, old guilt.”

The Host paused, his finger raised above the desk. That wasn’t right, or it wasn’t the whole story. He could feel the missing thread in between Dark’s call and Mark texting Tyler, the same absence that preceded Dark’s recent concern about you. Something had caused both of these events, and the Host could sense neither of them.

Had he missed something else?

The thought wrenched the Host’s stomach and he forced his narration to focus on something else as his finger tapping resumed its steady rhythm.

“After leaving the Host’s studio, Darkiplier went…” He felt his teeth grind together as his narration failed, as it always did when it came to that world of shadows and echoes Dark inhabited. “He _eventually_ returns to this plane at the cabin in the woods.”

The Host paused again and continued his narration only to find that the King of the Squirrels arrived before he could find out why Dark would choose to go to that place. His narration followed Dark briefly, just long enough to realize that he had no intention of returning to the cabin anytime soon.

“The Host stands and leaves his room, shutting the door behind him. He walks out of the house without encountering any of the egos and once outside he notices the change in the air. Looking ahead, the Host sees a storm coming.”

The Host stopped on the walkway in the backyard.

“The Host can make it to the cabin and back well before the storm arrives. He will have plenty of time to warn Mark then.”

Assured by this, the Host narrated his way across the backyard of the ego house and into the woods where he found an old, once familiar trail. His narration noted the squirrel watching his progress, but the King was far away gathering his subjects before the storm. The Host would have plenty of time to himself before anyone even knew he was gone, much less where he was going.

It was a long walk to the cabin, so long that the Host’s throat began to feel scratchy and dry from the constant narration required to avoid tripping over roots and limbs that had fallen across the path. But once he arrived in the clearing, it was not a need to pause for breath that made him stop short.

Slower now, he walked forward and stretched out his hand toward the door of the cabin, which opened at his word.

In its wake, a thousand memories rushed over the Host and he walked forward into nostalgia.

He did not need his narration here, after so many writing sessions into the dark, still hours of the morning. Dust met his fingers as he reached out and touched the back of the Author’s old chair, the familiar wood grain of the desk, of the shelves and cabinets. He breathed in and just the smell of the place was enough to bring back memories.

So many books, so many stories written here. And people loved them, they hung on every word he wrote. He barely even needed Mark’s fans to notice him, when he had so many of his own. Back when he had been_ the_ Author. Even if his characters sometimes needed…a little extra encouragement.

The Host heard the rasp of metal as his reaching fingers brushed against something and his reflexes moved faster than his narration. The grip of the metal baseball bat met his hand perfectly and he felt the smile spread across his face as he gave the bat a few practice swings.

It felt good. It felt _right._

_Back in control, like the Author should be._

The bat stopped mid swing.

_And it felt so good, didn’t it? To be in control._

“The…the _Host_…”

_Maybe he was right. Maybe there is more of Dark in you than Mark._

The Host’s grip tightened on the baseball bat. “These are not the Host’s thoughts. The Host is not alone in the cabin.”

The Host turned, but his grip on the bat slackened as his narration stumbled over who he faced in the cabin. His confusion only lasted until his narration realized what he was looking at, but that hesitation was all it needed.

The bat left his hands, wrenched away by the other, and the last thing he heard before the crack against his skull was a laugh without any trace of humor.

* * *

When the Host came to, he had no sense of how long he had been out. It took time for his aching head to piece together the memory of what had happened, and then even longer to make sense of the plastic strips cutting into his wrists as they held them up against a metal pipe of some kind. He had a vague memory of exposed pipes in the cabin, leading to a sink in the corner, but he had never been as acquainted with them as he was now, hanging by his wrists with the lower half of his body twisted and aching from prolonged contact with the cold concrete floor.

But that discomfort was nothing compared to the realization that there was some kind of gag strapped around his head and blocking his mouth in such a way that even breathing regularly was an effort, much less speaking.

At his effort, that _thing_ “laughed” again. The voice that spoke sounded familiar, in a sense, but it had all of the wrong intonation, all the emphasis on exactly the wrong words.

“There he is! Ready to wake up and join us again, Author? Pardon, I meant ‘host.’ Probably shouldn’t be surprised you’re the first to ‘see’ my lovely new mask for what it is. Ever the one to ruin the surprise. Don’t you know that’s just rude?”

The Host leaned away from that voice as it moved closer, his response muffled and choked by the gag. It made it worse to know what face it wore, this “Maskiplier.”

“You smiled more, when you were him…when you were the author. Now it seems like you don’t even _want_ to be happy.”

The Host struggled, pulling against his restraints, but his skin was more likely to break than these ties.

“I know what you need, what _all_ of you need, and we can pick up right where we left off before we were rudely interrupted so long ago, once something…Some_ones_ have been taken care of.”

The Host flinched at the sound of that laughter. At the memory of when it had come out of him, when that _thing_, that _Mask_, took over. When it stripped him and so many of the other egos of everything except the desire to be happy, to laugh, to smile, and to do exactly what it told them to do.

No matter how much it hurt.

“Gosh, it’s been over a year, hasn’t it? Oh, but your…friend gave me so much time to watch and to plan and to escape our little prison, and this time, **_no one_**—No more surprises, no more mirror, no more _them_, and then…Everyone will be so, so happy, won’t they?”

The Host struggled even harder to free himself, to get a word out, anything—

Only for the gag to suddenly be ripped off as that voice spoke again.

“JUST. BE. HAPPY.”

The Host opened his mouth but clenched it shut again as a shiver ran down his spine and a broken, distorted laugh tried to make its way up. No, no, not again. He put all of his strength into his words, forcing them to be true. “The Host is not infected. He will not become one of the masks, ever again.”

“So you say. Maybe if you keep saying it enough times, it will even be true. I wonder if you can feel it, that wonderful smile returning to your face. Let it do its work, or keep fighting. Either way, we both know how this will end.”

“The Host—” The Host felt his chest squeeze as a laugh that did not belong to him tried to force its way up. “The Host is not infected.”

“How long can you fight it, and why even bother? All you have to do is just be happy. How hard is that for the Author—the Host? Ah, but you’ll have all the time in the world to learn how to smile. Here, in your favorite place. And all the words you want but none to save yourself.”

He could feel it leaving. He had to do something, to stop it, to free himself, to warn the others. Anything, but the moment he inhaled the thing was in his head, his chest, his lungs again.

“The Host is not infected,” he repeated, desperately now. “The Host will not be used by you.”

A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face, or maybe it was a drop of blood escaping the bandages around his eyes as he spoke again and again, willing it to be true with every ounce of his being. He didn’t know how long he hung there from the pipe, his legs long since numb as he prayed again and again to stay in control just long enough to shake it off another time. He didn’t know how many minutes or hours passed before the window on the door crashed open, before the ties around his wrists were undone, before he leaned into a cape made of fur, shivering and shaking, his throat aching and his voice almost gone.

“The Host is not infected. The Host is in control.”

“He is, he is,” came the quiet reassurance as a hand rubbed his back. “You’re okay now.”

At those words, which by this point he trusted more than his own, the Host sank into unconsciousness.

* * *

Dr. Iplier jumped when the King of the Squirrels burst into the infirmary, which was unfortunate considering he was holding some samples of various fluids at the time.

He swore over the ego’s frantic words and wiped himself down with a towel before he asked, “What is it, King? Did a squirrel fall out of a tree again?”

“Need you, right now, cabin, the Host, really bad, really really really bad!”

The doctor pulled away from the King’s frantic arm pulling but said, “The Host? Did something happen?”

“Yes! What part of ‘really really really bad’ don’t you understand?!” The King looked around and grabbed the blue-shirted Google. “You’re strong, you come too! He can’t walk, not like he is now.”

“The Host’s legs are malfunctioning?” Google asked, glancing at Dr. Iplier, who was already gathering some supplies in a bag. “Where is his location?”

“The cabin, in the woods!” The King saw the confused look Google and the doctor shared and groaned in frustration. “Doesn’t anyone in this house ever get out? Come _on!”_

“Wait, Y/N,” Dr. Iplier said, glancing back at your bed. You were still asleep, and barely woke up when he tried to talk to you. “Y/N, we need to step out, okay?”

You mumbled a response and, despite the King’s antsy bouncing up and down, Dr. Iplier took a minute to check your temperature again.

“101,” he murmured after the thermometer’s beep. “It’s going up.”

“I can have one of my other units take care of Y/N while we’re gone,” Google said. “We can relay information, if you would like to pass along any instructions on the way.”

Dr. Iplier hesitated, but it was clear that the Host needed immediate attention. “Fine.”

He described the medicine to Google as they left, following the King’s rapid pace out of the house and into the woods, along with further steps to take if that failed. Not long after they left, the green-shirted Google entered the infirmary with the ‘G’ on his shirt glowing as he reviewed the doctor’s instructions.

“Y/N, it is time for more medicine,” he said tonelessly as he approached your bed, but you did not stir. He pressed a hand to your forehead and took your temperature again. “102.3 degrees Fahrenheit. This is above the recommended operating temperature.”

With some effort, he managed to wake you up enough to drink some more water along with the medicine. Once that was done, he sighed at the effort required to keep humans running and, seeing that you were shivering, went to get another blanket for your bed from the storage closet.

In the small closet, he paused, his internal motors whirring when he heard what sounded like a laugh out in the infirmary.

“Y/N?” he said, poking his head out, but you were still asleep and there was no one else in the room. He logged the error and turned back to the storage closet just before another laugh came from somewhere behind him.

Although it was a stretch to call that sound a laugh.


	8. Studio Time

The studio space that the egos used was, much like the rest of their home, not quite right with reality. Every time it was used it seemed just that little bit different, whether because the ceiling was slightly higher one day than the next or the segmented walls weren’t guaranteed to be in the same place every time the studio was used. Considering the wildly different uses the egos put the area to, there were props and flimsy backgrounds littering the floor everywhere outside of the relatively small space that was actually used for filming.

It also didn’t help that keeping a steady crew outside of the egos themselves was nearly impossible, as the guests weren’t the only ones lucky to survive even one segment. Right now, aside from the four egos standing around the cameras, the only other normal person was a man attending to the monitors where an earlier recording of Bim’s game show was playing.

“Wilford, why did you drag me here?” Dark asked, noticing that the Google standing among the other egos had already spotted him and was attempting to give him a warning glare. Dark returned it with interest and a silent promise to make the android regret any hasty words this time.

The glare was somewhat ruined when Wilford threw one arm around his shoulders and patted Dark’s cheek with his other hand. “I think it’s time to put you in front of the camera again! The fans have been asking for it, and this face deserves to be on the screen!”

Wilford shook his hand after the pat to dispel some of the cold seeping from Dark’s aura as he scowled. Behind him, the row of monitors began to flicker with static and ghost images while the intern pulled off his headphones and threw them as far away as possible.

“Or behind the camera is good too. Can never get enough help these days, and yes, Jerry, I’m talking about you. Tell your wife I said hi!”

Wilford ducked to avoid the mike that sailed through the space where his head had been a second ago and added to Dark as if nothing just happened, “But you want to get in the in, on the up and up, am I right? Here’s where we start.”

Wilford winked and strode across the studio floor toward the four egos.

“Good evening, everyone! Are we ready to start?”

“If you mean start my show, then yes,” Bim said, straightening his tie as he watched Wilford approach. “I have the studio for the day, and we still need to go two more rounds. Isn’t that right, my lovely contestants?”

“Uh, they all, uh, made a run for it,” Eric said from his place offstage and away from the cameras even though they were clearly not on. “During the break. The crew too. Jerry, um, he was the last one but I guess he’s gone now? Not that, uh, that’s Mr. Warfstache’s fault or anything, I’m sure he…had other things to do…”

Yandereplier hissed under their breath and said, “Yeah, kind of hard to finish the game without the players. Sorry, Bim.”

Yandereplier shrugged and the red-shirted Google appeared to be unable to care any less than he already did, but Eric seemed to make a determined effort to appear even smaller than his usual cowering. Bim’s anger, however, had only one target in mind as his eyes narrowed behind his glasses.

“Why do you do this every time?! Can’t you let me finish _one_ segment without you butting your giant pink mustache into it?”

“Well, I don’t see how all that was _my_ fault,” Wilford said, not backing down as Bim stormed up to him. “I’ve warned you about locking those doors, but you’re always _so_ surprised when people run away because they ‘want to live’ or whatever. Why do you even bother with these game shows, anyways? Oh, whoop de do, ‘I’m the next Alex Trebek’ or whoever the kids are watching these days. Why don’t you ever change it up a little? Have some _fun_?”

Bim swelled up and gripped the lapels of his jacket as he gave Wilford the hard stare. “How dare you! Alex Trebek is a national treasure!”

“I’m…not sure that’s what you should be taking offense to,” Dark said as he approached. “And I also recall that you made an attempt to host your own game show, Wilford. What exactly did you have in mind here?”

“Hm…” Wilford paused to consider, long enough to confirm to everyone present he had no clue, before he said, “Oh, I know, how about an interview! Haven’t done one of those in a while.”

“And you’re not doing one while it’s still my studio time,” Bim said.

“Besides, how exactly is doing the thing you’ve always done changing it up?” Yandere asked, but both hosts ignored them.

“I’ll have to get my interviewing knife,” Wilford murmured to himself, patting down his thighs as he spoke. “How embarrassing, to be caught out with only my shooty and no stabbys.”

“Yan, go dig out some costumes, Eric, put on a wig, and Google, find some egos with nothing better to do, we’re finishing this show!”

“…Can I be the contestant that doesn’t have to go through the grinder?” Eric asked.

“Grinder?” Dark repeated.

“Only if you get your questions right!” Bim answered, playfully slapping the younger ego on the back. “…And get lucky with the Wheel of Wow.”

“No one is going through any grinder,” Dark said.

“Because we’re going to need to set up for the interview,” Wilford added. “Eric, find my chairs, Google, set the lighting, Yan, keep being beautiful, you. Oh, who should our guest be? I hear there’s a kid named Sally Face who’s got some wild stories to tell, we just need to get past the guards and—”

“Uh, no, we’re going to finish the game! You can’t just leave the grinder waiting!”

“…I rather think we can,” Dark muttered, noting to himself that this is exactly why almost no one else in the house ever got presents from Santa. He reached out and grabbed Eric’s shoulder while he waffled back and forth on who to listen to and said, “Just give it a minute.”

“I, uh—” Eric flinched as both Wilford and Bim threw out conflicting orders on what he should be doing as their argument escalated, starting with reasonable requests such as to get one of the others and going on to tearing down the set, finding a prison guard’s uniform, and turning on the “fighting music,” whatever that was. “Should we do something?”

“Nah,” Yandere said as they pulled out their phone to check some messages. “This happens all the time. Just let ‘em vent, right Google?”

“To save on memory and data usage, this unit ignores orders until the fighting stops,” Google answered, watching as Bim reached his arm up and around, trying to get a hold of Wilford’s mustache from the half nelson hold Wilford had him locked in. “Longest recorded time was 4 hours, 37 minutes, and 3 seconds.”

“Only because you stopped counting during the great pineapple on pizza debate because you said it was stupid,” Yandere pointed out. “That lasted, like, _weeks_.”

“Yes. We completed several tasks while you lesser beings were occupied arguing the merits of frivolous and ultimately meaningless energy consumption,” Google said, smiling to himself. “It was a good time.”

As entertaining as this was, Dark didn’t feel like waiting to see if these two would break that record. “That is enough. Wilford, enough!”

He hauled on both of them, pulling them up to their feet and using his aura to separate the two long enough for Wilford to fix his suspenders and Bim to run a hand over some flyaway hairs.

“Neither of you are going to be recording anything,” Dark said, and interrupted them before either could protest. “Bim, you have no crew, no contestants, and you might as well just try to salvage what you can from what you’ve already recorded at this point or start over. Wilford, you don’t even have a guest, much less any prepared questions, and again, no film crew.”

“Pft, who needs preparation?” Wilford asked.

“Weren’t you just saying you wanted to try and work on scripts a few minutes ago?” Dark asked.

“But this is my studio time, I don’t want to just waste it.” Bim scowled. “Who even asked you, anyways?”

“I could let Wilford put you back into a headlock,” Dark offered. “There’s enough cameras around here, maybe we could film that and post it instead.”

“I mean, I got most of it on my phone already,” Yandere chimed in. “But if you want to keep going, we could get some sweet angles, maybe get some props to beat each other with. Google, you can handle music, right?”

“I have access to a wide variety of music which may be suitable for this situation,” Google said. His eyes blanked for a moment and then he added, “Would you prefer heavy metal or banjo?”

“Banjo!” Wilford answered, cracking his knuckles.

Bim paused to consider and said, “You know, if you wanted another pair of eyes on those scripts, I’m sure we can come up with something…A little less harmful to my health?”

Wilford’s mustache tilted as his mouth twisted underneath it and he stroked his chin. “A crossover, you say? A little something to keep the fans guessing?”

Bim couldn’t hide his relief that Wilford was already moving on to another idea, but that meant he now had to follow up. After a moment of struggle, his eyes lit up. “You know, these ninja warrior, ultimate champion obstacle course type shows are fairly popular these days.”

“Obstacles?” Wilford grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Pits. Pendulums. Possibilities.”

“I know where we can get some chiranhas who are ready for some fresh me—er, fun.”

“Bim, my buddy, I think it may be time to move outside of this studio and really get our hands dirty,” Wilford said, throwing an arm around the ego’s shoulders. “Tell me more about these chiranhas.”

Dark watched the two of them start throwing ideas back and forth and admitted aloud, “I may have just unleashed a great evil upon this world.”

“Eh, it’s Tuesday. Bound to happen eventually,” Yandere said with a shrug. “You should see what I got up to in the Occult Club last week.”

“Remember, don’t make any deals with demons without letting me vet them first,” Dark said out of reflex and Yandere snorted. He noticed that Google was still giving him the glare and asked, “What? What problem could you possibly have with me right now?”

“It is my directive to keep an eye on you when in the same vicinity in case you revert to previous modes of behavior,” Google answered. “That same directive warns against behavior designed to curry favor or increased familiarity in an attempt to regain your previous station within the house.”

“For how long?” Dark asked. After all, he could wait. He had been patient before, he could do it again.

“Unspecified.” Google turned his head at a call from Bim and walked away without waiting for Dark’s response. Probably a good thing, as Dark wanted nothing more right then than to rewrite the android’s “directive” in a…manual kind of way.

Before long, Wilford and Bim were drawing out plans across the studio floor with Google running numbers and Yandere throwing in the occasional suggestion. Eric watched from a distance, “um”-ing and attempting once or twice to suggest that some of their ideas might be a little too lethal, but to no avail.

They were so wrapped up in their plans that some time passed before Wilford looked up and then around the studio before asking, “Say, where did that Dark go? He should be helping us!”

“Disagreed,” Bim said. “Do you think a second flamethrower would be too obvious?”

“He left a while ago,” Eric said and looked away when Wilford gave him a sharp look. “I guess he, uh, had something he needed to say to Y/N? Only they walked by the door and he practically ran after them.”

“Logical error noted,” Google said and grunted when Wilford pushed past him and ran out of the studio.

“Yeah, like that,” Eric said weakly. “Is…is something wrong, do you think?”

“Eric Derekson’s statement is incorrect,” Google continued, scowling a little as he rubbed at the spot where Wilford’s hand hit him. “Y/N is currently in the infirmary with another Google unit, and they have not left the room since they arrived two hours ago.”

“Well, it _looked_ like them,” Eric said, frowning.

“Maybe you just wanted to see them,” Yandere said. “I see my Senpai in all kinds of places. In the clouds. In my tea leaves. In the monitor connected to the secret camera I set up in his bedroom.”

“…What?”

Bim sighed at the flurry of notes and stood up, dusting off his pants as he checked his watch. “Is it that late? We’re going to be late for dinner, and I have a feeling Wilford won’t be coming back anytime soon from wherever he’s run off to. Come on, if we’re too late, Chef Iplier will rope us into helping wash the dishes.”

“Ugh, I had prune hands forever after last time,” Yandere said, leading the way to the studio door.

But Google beat them all to it and slammed the door shut before locking it on the inside.

“Uh, what’s the deal there, Googs?” Bim asked.

The ‘G’ glowed on his red shirt, but the android’s eyes were vacant as he spoke as if reading off from an internal memo.

“Lockdown has been initiated. No one is to leave their current area, and no one is to go anywhere alone or unsupervised. All egos are to remain in place for their own safety.”

* * *

Dark swore as he rounded the corner and found yet another empty hallway. He had seen you just feet ahead seconds ago, but there was no sign of anyone as he continued on, checking every door he walked past as if you had enough time to duck inside before he could catch up. Rain lashed against the windows and he realized that, at some point while he was in the studio, a storm had blown in. Right, the King of the Squirrels had said something about it earlier, hadn’t he? But now the wind shook the house as Dark made his way from room to room before stopping outside of one door in particular.

He knocked, but no answer came from inside your bedroom.

After a pause, he opened the door and peered inside. The room was dark and clearly empty, but he still turned on the light and walked in.

Your bed was undisturbed (how long had you been staying with Mark this time?) and there was nothing obviously out of place as Dark made his way to the closet door and checked inside, just to be on the safe side. A flash of lightning outside the house briefly added to the light in the room and Dark stared down at the empty closet floor.

Where did you hide, when you were at Mark’s house? Was the closet in your room there enough to block out the lightning and thunder and the memories they brought with them?

Dark shut the closet door a little harder than necessary, causing one of the pictures pinned to the board on the wall nearby to flutter. He paused, taking in the series of photographs of you with the other egos, and Mark, and the other friends you had made in the time since you came here. Below the board, a strange stuffed animal sat on top of the dresser, its wide eyes meeting Dark’s. Its species was a complete and total guess, although for some reason Dark hovered between duck or lion.

In its lap was a dried rose petal. It had faded since the time Dark gave the rose to you, the almost black hue more clearly a dark blue that tinted toward red on the outer layer. And, for some reason, there was a trace of green running straight through it.

Dark frowned at the sight of that third color and reached for the petal, but realized he had no time to think about that as thunder shook the house.

“Wilford,” he muttered and turned toward the door.

Only to stop short when he clearly heard a knocking sound, but not from the direction of either door. Following the persistent sound of the knock, Dark turned around and saw the mirror hanging beside your bed, and the figure standing there.

It looked like you, but when Dark met the eyes of the person in the mirror, there wasn’t a single doubt in his mind who he was looking at.

The sound might have been inaudible through the glass, but their response was clear when the District Attorney saw they had his full, undivided attention:

_“Finally.”_


	9. Storm Warning

“Hey there Chica Beeka, who missed me?” Mark said as the dogs ran around him and Amy back at his house. They acted as if their people had been gone for days not hours, and when Mark patted his chest and called, “Up! Up!” it took several tries before Chica listened and he could catch her front paws and gently swing her back and forth.

“I’m never sure who’s more excited when we come home, you or Chica,” Amy teased as she pet Henry.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mark said, grunting a little as he picked Chica up and spun her around a few times before putting her back down. He kept up the baby talk for the dogs a little longer, but they were soon distracted by the new toys Mark and Amy had brought home with them.

“Thank you,” he said, again. “I think getting out of the house was good for me.”

“Sunlight will do that to you,” Amy said, smiling as she went to put her bag down on the couch. “Good thing we went out when we did, it looks like it’s going to start pouring any minute now.”

“Yeah,” Mark said. He pulled back the window curtain to look up at the darkening sky. “It’s just supposed to rain, right?”

“I can check,” Amy said, already pulling out her phone.

Chica walked up to Mark with her new rope toy in mouth, and he managed to distract himself for a second trying to pull it away from her before Amy said, “Oh.”

She showed him the new storm warning on the weather app and he immediately said, “I should call Y/N.”

Amy nodded, and Mark could feel her listening as he called up your cellphone, only to swear when it just rang and rang before going to voicemail. Without bothering to leave a message, he hung up and had to dig through his contacts to find a number he rarely used.

“What’s it to you?” Abe answered his phone.

“What kind of—” Mark stopped himself. “Abe, it’s Mark. Can I talk to Y/N?”

“Y/N? Oh, right, I forgot to tell you,” the Detective said. “I dropped Y/N off at the other guys’ house. Doc said they were running a little fever, but it wasn’t anything serious.”

“What?” Mark said.

“What?” Amy mouthed from the other side of the room.

“Something wrong?” Abe asked.

“Y/N’s with Dr. Iplier, they’re not feeling well,” Mark said to Amy. “I should go over there, if the storm gets bad…”

He trailed off and Amy nodded. She had seen you jump even at the sound of thunder on the TV, and knew what it meant to you and the others who had been at the house that weekend.

“I can stay here with the dogs and keep them calm,” she said and Mark hesitated. As much as he didn’t want to leave them, he didn’t want to drag her or the dogs out into bad weather.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he promised.

“Wait, you’re going over there?” Abe asked, and Mark could hear the rattle of blinds on the other end of the line. He could imagine the Detective peering out at the sky overhead as he heard a sharp inhale before Abe said, “My place is on the way. If something’s wrong, then I’m coming with you.”

“What? Nothing’s wrong,” Mark said and heard the disbelief on the other end. “I’m going to check up on them, that’s all. Besides, you can’t just invite yourself along. I am not stopping to pick you up.”

“Then I’ll drive over there myself,” Abe answered. “This is my partner we’re talking about—”

“That has nothing to do with anything!” Mark heard the rattle of the Detective’s keys and sighed. “You know what,_ fine._ But you better be ready to jump in when I drive by, because I’m just going to slow down and open a door. Last thing I want to do is be caught out in LA traffic in the rain.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time I jumped into a moving car,” Abe said. “Or out of one.”

Mark didn’t bother with responding to that and just hung up on the Detective before giving Amy a real goodbye. Out in the van, he popped his phone into the holder on the dash and had it call Dr. Iplier as he backed out of the driveway and took off.

Almost immediately, he heard, _“You’ve reached the office of Dr. Iplier. If this is about how you’re dying, please—”_

Mark ended the call and told the phone to call Dr. Iplier’s cell, but that also went to voicemail. He was halfway to Abe’s house before his phone rang with a Google G in place of the caller’s image.

“Hey Google, are you with the doctor?” Mark asked.

“That is correct. We have only just now found a signal in our current location,” Google answered.

“Your—Aren’t you at the house?”

“Incorrect. This unit accompanied the doctor and the so-called King of the Squirrels into the woods, where the cell signal is entirely inadequate. Even here at this cabin, we only have a minimum connection to the other units.”

“Cabin?” Mark felt a bad taste rise in the back of his throat and swallowed it back. “What are you doing _there_?”

“The Host is incapacitated. Dr. Iplier has only just been able to bring him around, and he is babbling—”

“What?” Mark had to swerve back into his lane and forced himself to focus on the road and not on his phone. “What was he doing at the cabin?!”

“Unclear. The King of the Squirrels says that one of his… ‘subjects’ saw him enter this place, and when he arrived, he found him bound and incoherent. My words, not his.”

Straining, Mark could hear the doctor’s voice, clear and professional, and below that a raspy, rambling murmur. He pulled the van into a parking spot on the street in front of the low, run-down building the Detective called home and just stared at the phone, trying to let this sink in.

“Someone attacked him?” Mark asked.

He guessed that it was the King who answered, judging by the tone of his voice as he said, “He just kept saying he wasn’t infected, that he was in control. Over and over again.”

Silence fell on the other end of the line, and by straining Mark could hear the Host’s voice, faint and strained past recognition.

_“Mask…is back.”_ A rasping wheeze. _“It looked like…Y/N.”_

Mark stared at Abe’s house as silence fell on both ends of the call before Dr. Iplier started barking orders and Google spoke about protocols, directives. Their words fell on deaf ears as Mark just kept hearing the Host’s words over and over again.

Suddenly, he swore, and then swore three more times in quick succession before jumping out of the van without bothering to end the call or even shut the door behind him.

Because it just sank in that the door to Abe’s house was standing wide open despite the rain already starting to come down, despite the fact that the Detective would never forget to lock the door behind him. It creaked in the wind as Mark ran toward it, and made a deafening crack as he pushed it out of his way and went in.

Only to come to an abrupt stop in the front hall, frozen at the sight of Abe standing with his back against the wall, both hands on his gun but unable to point it directly at the person standing opposite him.

It looked like you, except its eyes were two black holes that revealed nothing underneath and its mouth was turned in a horrible slash of a smile as it stared at the Detective. As if waiting to see what he would do.

“Abe, get away from it! It’s not Y/N!”

“You think I don’t know that?!” Abe yelled, a vein showing in his forehead as his eyes kept flickering toward the bloodstain on its chest and then back up to those empty eyes. He tightened his grip on the gun, but it only seemed to tremble more as he tried to raise it. “What is this thing? Why does it look like Y/N?!”

“Shh, it’s okay, detective, we’re not here for you,” it said, the Mask wearing your face. Its voice was like yours, but just slightly distorted, as if just a pitch higher or lower than it should be while putting the emphasis in all the wrong places. “Hahaha, that would just be silly. Our business is with the man with all the masks. Of course, you could always shoot me, if you wanted to. This wouldn’t be the first partner to die at yours hands, would it?”

“You’re not my partner,” Abe said, but his eyes flickered toward Mark.

“No, this is the thing that attacked everyone last year,” Mark said, keeping his eyes on it. “It ran around looking like me, taking over most of my egos and trying to kill the rest of us until we got rid of it. That _thing_ is just a mask, Y/N is—"

He stopped short and the smile on its face got just that much bigger.

It had possessed the others before, making them all look like it with those empty eyes and rictus smiles.

What if this really was you?

Abe looked from him to the Mask and back again, eyes too bright as he demanded, “Well? Is this them or not?”

“I…” Mark trailed off.

“How do we snap them out of it?” Abe said, voice growing louder with every question. “What did you do last year?”

“_I_ didn’t do anything; we could barely do anything to it! Y/N did something, dragged it back into that place they were trapped in inside the mirror—”

The mirror, which was now completely shattered.

“So long in that mirror, in that _nothing_, so long being nothing without even a face to call my own. Heh, you have no idea, do you? Oh, not when you have so _many_ faces to choose from.” It laughed, its mouth not quite matching the sound, and pulled a wallet out of its pocket. Abe shouldn’t have been able to tense any more than he already was, but that vein in his forehead grew bigger at the sight of his gift to Y/N in the hands of this thing. As it spoke, the Mask opened the wallet and began tossing cards out of it and onto the ground. Mark recognized them as the cards the egos had given you back at the beach on your “birthday”, each of them a promise to spend time with you. Cards of Bing, Dr. Iplier, Bim Trimmer, one ego after the other clattered to the floor as the Mask tossed them aside as if they meant nothing. “One, two…There’s just so many to choose from, and that’s just the start when so many of your lovely fans want to be _just_ like _you_.”

The last card fell to the ground and the Mask tossed the wallet aside with a laugh that made both of the men shudder.

“Not going to happen,” Mark said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. “What’s it going to take to get rid of you again?”

“Silly. Haven’t you been listening? Only thing we want is to just make everyone happy. Once we’re through, there’ll be so many _lovely_ smiles, so many people who look just like me, like us. That’s why we have to take care of all those people who ruined our fun last time!” The Mask laughed and then tilted its head at an angle your neck shouldn’t have been able to go. “Maybe we can take care of all that pesky unfinished business by the time you join us. Even if we have to **_make_** them smile.”

The Mask wearing your face moved for the first time, stepping on the fallen cards as it suddenly broke into a sprint toward Abe, empty eyes trained on his as its smile opened.

Mark called out and winced, hands going to his ringing ears as one shot then two rang out.

“Abe! Abe, put the gun down,” Mark said, and repeated it before prying the weapon out of the Detective’s unresisting hands.

The moment the gun left Abe’s hands he pressed them to his head and slid to the ground, eyes clenched shut as he began to hyperventilate. “No, no, no…”

“No, Abe, look, there’s nothing there,” Mark said. He shook the Detective’s shoulder. “It’s gone, you didn’t—It’s gone.”

Abe opened one watering eye and stared at the empty hall in front of him. There wasn’t even a sign of where his bullets went in the opposite wall, but his ears still rang with the sound of the shot and his hands wouldn’t stop shaking no matter how many times Mark tried to tell him it was okay.

“I could have…” The Detective inhaled, his breath breaking on the words.

“Abe, I can’t stay here,” Mark said. “I have to get to the house, if that wasn’t Y/N…I have to make sure they’re okay, warn the others—”

He stopped and swore, remembering the call. It had already attacked the Host, if it went after the others looking like you—

And then he swore again.

_“Dark saw it_, he saw it last night, so it can’t be Y/N.” And he would keep telling himself that to keep from thinking about the alternative. He patted himself down and realized his phone was still out in the van.

Abe grabbed his arm as he started to stand and said, “I’m…I’m going with you. Just, just give me a second.”

Mark offered a hand to help the Detective up to his feet, but without a word Abe stood and picked up the wallet the Mask dropped, along with all of the scattered cards. He lagged behind as Mark ran out to the van in the downpour that had really started to come down while he was inside and picked up the phone. In his haste before, he hadn’t ended the call and voices were still talking on the other end.

“Google,” he said.

“You left me,” Google said, accusing.

“Yes, but it was important—”

“I was still speaking, and we registered gunshots on your end—”

“We saw it, we saw that…demon or whatever it is,” Mark interrupted. “It’s gone now, but we think it’s going back to the house. You need to send a warning to the others, now.”

He looked up as Abe got into the passenger seat and the Detective nodded and said, “It said it had unfinished business with the people who stopped it before.”

“I have already initiated the lockdown,” Google answered. “My other units have gathered the egos and are keeping them in their current locations until it is determined to be safe to leave or take other action.”

“What about Y/N? Are you still in the cabin?” Mark asked as he pulled the van out into the street, its windshield wipers struggling to keep up with the rain rushing down in torrents. At this rate, the roads were liable to start flooding.

“We can’t go anywhere,” Dr. Iplier answered. “The Host is in no condition to be moved, and Google can’t make it back to the house in this storm without risking a short circuit. But we left one of the other Googles with Y/N, they’re not alone.”

“Interfacing with other units,” Google said, and there was a beeping sound on the other end of the line. “The storm is interfering with my reception. Please hold.”

In the van, it was silent except for the rain pounding against the roof and the steady rhythm of the wiper blades across the windshield as they waited for what seemed like forever before the android spoke again.

“Red unit is in the studio with Bim Trimmer, Yandereplier, and Eric Derekson. Yellow unit is in the kitchen with Chef Iplier, Silver Shepherd, Ed Edgar—”

“You don’t have to list them all!” Mark shouted at the phone.

There was a pause and then Google said, “Green unit is in the infirmary but not responding. Y/N, Wilford Warfstache, and Darkiplier are currently the only ones unaccounted for.”

“What do you mean, he’s not responding?” Mark said, feeling his foot pressing harder against the accelerator even though he was already going too fast. Beside him, Abe tightened his grip on the handle above the passenger door but said nothing.

“The unit is receiving messages, but has yet to respond. Location indicators place it in the infirmary, and last directives it acknowledged included taking care of Y/N.”

“The Host,” Mark said, desperately. “He’s there, ask him.”

Dr. Iplier answered again, after a long pause. “Mark, the Host is in bad shape. I don’t know what they did to him, but judging by his bandages and his overexertion this morning I suspect he’s in need of a blood transfusion that we can’t give him here. He can barely speak, and even if he _could_ narrate, he’s confused and delirious.”

“What about one of the others, back at the house?” Abe asked. “Can’t you send one of them to check?”

“Lockdown was initiated for a reason,” Google said. “Based on previous data, this so-called ‘Maskiplier’ prioritized infecting those who were alone and vulnerable. Splitting up the others would only put them at risk.”

_Alone and vulnerable._

“Dark,” Mark muttered, his voice lost in the sound of the rain. Of course it would show itself to the one person no one would listen to or trust.

He remembered last night, the doubt and whispers and the sense that he hadn’t been alone in the hall and sped up again, his grip so tight on the wheel that his knuckles were turning white.

It could have done something last night, attacked him or Dark like it did the Host. But it chose to mess with their minds instead, and as lightning flashed across the sky Mark realized that it was still playing with them. Why else would it show up at Abe’s house, just when Mark was supposed to arrive? It wanted to taunt Abe into shooting “you”, and it wanted Mark to know exactly what it was doing.

As the others continued to talk and argue about what to do, as thunder shook the van and the rain continued to pour down, Mark stared at the road ahead and kept driving, even though he knew they would never make it to the house in time.


	10. You Look Like Me

“Dark?” Wilford’s voice boomed out as he roamed the empty halls of the ego house. “Come on out, you silly goose!”

He opened a door at random and frowned at the darkened study. No one there.

The slam of the door met the rumble of thunder in the distance.

Wilford blinked, pink slipping in around the brown of his eyes as he went to the next door.

Another study, this one smaller with a single desk covered with notes and books. Newspaper clippings and photos were pinned all over the walls alongside post-it notes covered in erratic scribbles. In the typewriter, closely typed lines filled the page, some of the words merging together in the writer’s haste to type the same sentence over and over again.

“Well that doesn’t seem right,” Wilford said, his tone overly cheery as he shut the door.

He paused and opened the same door again to find a bedroom on the other side. Probably Ed Edgar’s, judging by the number of cowboy hats, but Wilford wasn’t one to judge.

Rain pelted the window on the far side of the room and a streak of lightning flashed outside. It briefly lit up a mess of covers and clothes strewn around a massive bed, a broken picture frame lying on the floor where a man in a uniform stared back at the camera. And then the room was back to normal, from the industrial-size tub of mustache wax at the foot of the bed to the posters of Buffalo Bill and Billy Mays on the walls.

The crash of thunder this time completely covered the sound of the door shutting and rumbled on as Wilford went through the house, his path becoming increasingly erratic with every roll of thunder, every flash of lightning. He moved from door to door and floor to floor without passing any of the space in between, but the longer he searched, the more what he saw just stopped making any sense.

Then again, when did anything here make any sense?

Wilford kept searching but, funnily enough, it was getting harder to remember exactly who he was looking for.

Well, whoever they were, he’d find where they were hiding eventually.

He had to.

Another burst of thunder shook the house and he laughed, but for some reason it sounded more like a broken, cracked sob.

* * *

_“How?”_

Dark moved closer to the mirror, staring intently at the District Attorney standing on the other side.

“How are you here, like this?”

They spoke, but after a few words Dark had to shake his head.

“I can’t hear a word you’re saying.” He moved closer to the glass, aware that he did not seem to have a reflection. It gave the impression that he was looking into a window which just so happened to have an identical version of your room on the other side than an actual mirror. They did not back away, but their eyes narrowed as he approached. “You…you’re the one who remembers.”

They nodded, once.

“Y/N—The _other_ Y/N, do they know you’re in here?”

They shook their head.

“How long have you been in here?

One shoulder up and then down again in a half shrug.

Dark paused, letting this information sink in. He knew how you referred to the District Attorney, to the one who remembered as if they were a separate person. He’d thought you were just trying to blank out those memories, that with the right…incentive you would remember more than just the random flashes. That is, until he “borrowed” your body in the events leading up to his eviction. In that short time, he’d felt a second presence hiding in the back, stirring up memories and…other things best left forgotten, the same presence that had tried to fight him before he left them in the mirror all those years ago.

“Can I assume you just didn’t want to go back to where you felt more…at home?” he asked, rapping a knuckle on the glass of the mirror.

They scowled and made a gesture that Dark had no trouble identifying.

“Rude. And foolish, considering your situation.” Dark spoke with practiced confidence, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of them. This was…well, more than unexpected. It was _interesting_. He only managed to meet their eyes, the decades of pain and anger there, for just a few seconds before he looked away. “Then explain or stop wasting my time.”

They shook their head and sighed. After taking a moment to look past Dark, they turned and walked toward the back wall of the bedroom reflected behind him, where your board with its pictures hung above your dresser. They studied the pictures and took two down before returning to their place in the mirror opposite Dark, where they held up two different pictures of you, one from the beach and one from a project you had helped Mark on recently.

“Not the best pictures,” Dark answered and they sighed again. Remembering everything seemed to have done a number on their supply of patience. That, or they grudged every minute of this “conversation” with him. “I get it, you and Y/N.”

They shook their head and pointed at the first picture.

“Y/N.”

They nodded and pointed at themselves and the picture again, then held it possessively to their chest. It took a few more variations on the gesture before Dark said, “Your Y/N?”

The District Attorney nodded and their glare quickly made the smirk forming on Dark’s lips disappear.

“Fine, _your_ Y/N. Then who is that supposed to be?” Dark asked, gesturing toward the second picture.

They looked around before giving up and taking their own fingernail to the picture. By the time they finished scraping away at the image and held it up for Dark to see, the you in that picture’s eyes had been completely marked out and a smiled scratched above the lower half of your face.

Any breath Dark had he lost as he stared at the image. With more vivid detail than he ever wanted, he saw you again, bloody and smiling in the mirror downstairs. He remembered the split second when he woke up in his office and saw “you” leaning over him, but your eyes…

There was nothing there.

“The Mask,” he whispered and the District Attorney nodded. “No, it…Why…If you knew it was here, why didn’t you do something?!”

The District Attorney gestured helplessly at the mirror.

“Don’t give me that! You and Y/N, you’ve warned them before, you’ve stopped me before, you should’ve been able to—”

They shook their head and help up the damaged picture of you, of the Mask, and laid it over the normal picture of you before pantomiming it pulling the normal picture away from their outstretched hand.

“It’s keeping you from them.” Dark stared at their reflection as this sank in. The District Attorney, locked away again, not even able to warn you of what was coming. How many times had they tried to reach out to the others, and he was the first to notice? “I didn’t even know that was possible.”

The District Attorney’s eyes went down to the pictures in their hands and he watched as their anger and impatience with him turned into worry and sadness.

“It isn’t, is it?” Dark asked, but the District Attorney didn’t look up. Two sets of memories, but one existed before the mirror, while the second was created inside of it, inside of that house, in another place entirely based on what you had said before. You weren’t made to walk around this reality, at least not alone.

“Y/N, where are they now?”

The District Attorney went back to the pictures and returned with one of several of the egos posing in front of a sandcastle, but their finger pointed out one in particular.

“Dr. Iplier. The infirmary?” When they nodded, Dark realized he needed to go, but thought he should point out one possible solution to their problem. “Y/N, you don’t _have_ to stay trapped in this mirror. The…’other’ you may be unavailable at the moment, but there is an alternative.”

They took it about as well as Dark expected them to, which is to say that if any stare could turn him to stone, theirs came extraordinarily close. He didn’t need to be able to read lips to guess what they said in response, but he could practically feel the venom coming through the glass.

“Well, it’s your choice, of course,” Dark said and turned to leave but stopped short when he heard another knock on the mirror.

The District Attorney had moved to the back of the reflection and now stood next to the dresser. As Dark watched, they pointed at the bizarre stuffed animal sitting on top of it, the one Wilford gave you.

“This?” Dark asked as he picked it up. “You can’t seriously expect me to take this with me.”

The District Attorney nodded solemnly, their eyes meeting his with every ounce of sincerity.

“Fine,” Dark said, if only because he didn’t have time to argue. He tucked the rabbit or bear or whatever the thing was under his arm and pretended like he couldn’t see the smile on the District Attorney’s face. “But once I’m done fixing this, you owe me.”

At the door, he glanced over his shoulder again, but the District Attorney was gone. Holding on to the ridiculous stuffed animal, Dark disappeared into his aura and took the more direct route to the infirmary.

He stepped out of the darkness and, with perfect dramatic timing he could have done without, the thunder outside roared as he took in the sight of you, shivering in your sleep on one of the infirmary beds. There was no sign of the doctor anywhere, and the only other person in the room was the broken Google android that lay just outside the storage room door, the ‘G’ on its green shirt faded and dark.

He could hardly count the other you sitting perched on the foot of the bed as a person, with its blank eyes focused on the door and a smile on its face as if it had been expecting him.

“You certainly took your time, didn’t you? Not like there’s anything important on the line for you though, so…” The Mask swung its legs back and forth a couple of times before jumping up to its feet. “I can’t blame you _too_ much. Still was really looking forward to seeing you again after our last little meeting, do you remember that?”

Dark stood his ground as the thing approached but felt his aura swirl protectively around him. Did he remember? Even just looking at those empty eyes and the complete and total nothing behind them he felt the pain in his arm again where it had carelessly broken it over a year ago. That, when he had come at it with everything he had. He’d learned then that whatever this thing was, he couldn’t fight or manipulate it. He knew of creatures like this, demons or manifestations or whatever the human word for it might be, but that was just the point: it wasn’t human. It wasn’t even on the same level as that glitch, because at least he could pretend to reason with Anti or at the very least steer that homicidal rage into something beneficial, but Dark had no idea what this thing actually wanted. Well, beyond spreading like a virus to possess and make everyone “look like” it.

But he wasn’t here to fight it, or talk to it. Right now, he just had to get close enough to you that his aura could get both of you out of this room and away from that thing’s influence. If that meant playing along and distracting it, then fine.

“I seem to recall an…incident,” Dark said, careful not to take his eyes off of it. “But you were wearing a different mask at the time.”

“Maybe I thought it was time for a change?” The Mask shrugged and appeared next to your bed, where it looked down at you and smiled. The color had faded from your lips, which pressed together with another shiver. Aside from that small movement you were still, chest barely rising with each breath. Beside your body, the Mask looked like a faded version of you but not by much. Less “real” in comparison, like it wasn’t fully _here_ yet, but at this rate that wouldn’t last for much longer. It was growing stronger for every moment you grew weaker.

The Mask turned its head toward Dark, the same stagnant smile in place. “No, maybe it’s because of the way you all look at this mask. Even your dear blind ‘favorite’ hesitated, and he knew in an instant what he was looking at.”

“The Host?” Dark asked, stopping short in his attempt to move closer to the bed. If anything, that smile grew wider as he measured his reaction. At least one casualty already then, not including a Google, but Dark knew he had just left some of the egos minutes ago. They couldn’t all be infected, not yet. And it could all be undone, if they could just get rid of this thing again. Priorities, then: keep talking. “You’ve been busy, although I suppose you would need to make up for lost time. You said I took my time, but it took you over a year to even show any kind of face around here.”

“I…Was curious, of the one who sent me back after so much time together in the place beyond the mirror, of the man with all the masks and all these parts to get to play, of all these lovely puppets and fans and of _so much_ potential to consider. Of the curious little house who became a voice and offered a choice and became…something else.” The Mask was back in front of Dark again, this time its version of your face far too close to his own. “Now isn’t that interesting?”

“Your rhymes could use some work,” Dark replied.

He immediately regretted it when the Mask laughed. It sounded nothing like your own laugh, or like any sound a living creature would want to make in any state of mind, and it continued for far too long.

Dark’s eye twitched as his aura began to ring, the darkness gathering in around him as the lights overhead flickered. “Your interest is…flattering, but my condition is old news at this point. I’m more curious about what you are. Why are you here? What could you possibly want from these idiots and bleeding hearts that you couldn’t find somewhere else?”

“See, you’re missing the point here, just how simple it is. Me—no no no, the question is, what do _you_ want?” The Mask giggled and began to pace around the infirmary, fiddling with the corner of your blanket or the curtains as it passed by, but always, always keeping that smile and those hollow eyes on Dark. “I learned so much watching you, saw how…alike we are. Let’s be honest, nothing would make me happier than to see the _Entity_ smile one last time.”

Dark turned as if to keep the Mask in sight, but the movement brought him closer and closer to your bed. Just a little closer, but at those words he stilled and his aura took on a violent hue, with a split-second afterimage snarling at the figure across the room.

**_“__We are nothing alike_**—You are just a pathetic creature playing at being someone else. Without that “mask” of yours, you are nothing.”

The mask in question tilted its head without responding, but that smile on the image of your face twitched slightly.

“And you do not get to call me the Entity, or Celine, or Damien. I am them and **_so much more_**. I am certainly more than a pointless, messed-up reflection like you.”

“You don’t like my mask? Oh, yes, you did throw this face away when you had the chance, but maybe you’ll…Understand the desire to have a body of your own, a face of your own, even if you have to _take_ it from someone else first.” It picked up a scalpel from among a line of Dr. Iplier’s instruments and twirled it between its fingers as it spoke, and Dark swore one of those blank, hollow eyes closed for a split second in a wink.

“…You might be projecting a little,” Dark said, and the smile grew just that much wider.

“Look at you, how far you’ve come, it’s…inspired me. Only you let all of these ‘idiots and bleeding hearts’ you called them hold you back, treat you like you’re nothing again? One has to wonder if you just _want_ to go back to being a whisper in the darkness, a…suggestion in the mind. Knowing how fun that can be after my own experimentation, it’s still…disappointing.”

Experimentation? Dark briefly wondered what this thing had been doing besides haunting him but brushed the thought away. He feigned walking closer to the Mask, the path just so happening to bring him closer to your bed. It moved like Wilford, often skipping the space in between it and where it wanted to go, but Dark just had to get you in his aura and it wouldn’t matter.

“I, unlike you, understand the value of patience. I don’t need to possess everyone to make them do what I want when a word here and a word there is so much easier. And, you’ll notice that they chose to bring me back while you are just going to be thrown back to whatever crack you slithered out of. They know, and they will always remember, how much they need me.”

“Lovely speech,” the Mask said in the same cheery voice as always. “Is that what you tell yourself? Knowing that, you certainly don’t need some loose end getting in the way after you thought you took care of it so long ago. Easy enough to take care of that for you.”

Dark blinked and the Mask was gone from its spot on the other side of the room beside the instrument tray. Behind him, he heard a giggle and turned in time to see it balance the scalpel still in hand as it stood next to the head of your bed.

** _“No!”_ **

It laughed as the word escaped from Dark’s lips.

“Maybe not then, maybe there’s something that could be done to make…Everyone so much happier, so much more ready to smile for me.”

Dark moved at the same time as the Mask, aura lashing out to keep it from getting any closer to you, but he was not prepared for it to lunge toward him instead. It reached for him with its mask of you, your hand gripping Dark’s throat as it bore him down toward the ground.

Dark’s voice and breath couldn’t escape as his aura lashed out wildly, tearing into the false form of you, unable to look away from your face that wasn’t made to smile that way, your eyes that lacked any spark of anything beyond that cold emptiness and, somewhere in the void, something else looked out.

But the Mask continued to smile as if it could not feel the cuts while its other hand, the one holding the scalpel, moved and Dark gasped. His aura reacted to the pain, splintering into multiple afterimages as the Mask added its weight to the point.

“Beneath it all, beneath that face you stole…**_You look like me.”_** It shouldn’t have been able to smile any wider or tilt its head that way as it saw the darkness of his aura begin to split and flicker between red, and blue, and, because it was looking for it, an echo of green. “Even after all this time, you just can’t let them go. But don’t worry, this will help. You’ll have all the time you need to realize where you went wrong, where you lost control, and who knows, maybe we’ll meet again…Entity.”

It watched, and smiled, as the last of Dark’s aura faded away until he stopped struggling.


	11. Heartbeat

You sat up in an unfamiliar bed, heart hammering as your vision swirled before settling on the infirmary around you. You weren’t sure what woke you up at first, just that there was an overwhelming sense that you needed to move, to get out of here now, right now.

And then the thunder shook the house, causing the windows to rattle as rain beat down on the other side.

At that sound your body moved on its own, or tried to, but your movements seemed slow and sluggish in the face of your panic. It was a struggle to free yourself from the blankets when your entire body was already shaking from the chills that ran up and down your spine, not helped by the clammy sweat on your face and neck. You shuddered as your bare feet touched the cold tile floor and paused, on some rational level realizing that this might not be a good idea.

“Dr. Iplier?”

Your voice sounded weak even in your own ears, but looking around you didn’t see any sign of the doctor, or Google.

The wind picked up outside and you heard the creak of the trees outside.

No, you needed to get out of here, now.

You stood, legs shaking with the effort, but that wasn’t why you froze and felt as though the floor might drop out beneath you.

Standing up, you could now see the body lying just beyond the foot of your bed.

He lay on his back, jacket gone and white shirt stained red around the wound halfway between the center of his chest and his left shoulder. His eyes were closed, and without his aura he looked like Damien, but you recognized him immediately.

You also immediately noticed that Dark wasn’t breathing.

“Dr. Iplier!”

You shouted, your voice returning in a loud burst that still failed to get a response as you dove toward Dark and checked his pule.

Nothing.

“DR. IPLIER! ANYONE!”

You pulled out your phone with shaking hands and dropped it beside Dark and the stuffed animal Wilford had given you. Had Dark been on his way to bring it to you?

You had no time to think about that as you said, “Okay, Google,” and the phone lit up with a ping. Another ping echoed from across the room and, through the legs of the beds in between you and the storage room door, you could see the body of the green-shirted android, eyes open and blank as a red light blinked behind them, the ‘G’ on its shirt faded and dark.

He could be fixed, you’d seen Google’s units repaired so many times now.

That’s what you told yourself as you positioned your hand on the center of Dark’s chest, just as Dr. Iplier showed you, locked your hands together, and began performing CPR while you spoke to the phone.

“Call Dr. Iplier.”

The phone’s screen blinked in response and began to ring as you continued the compressions, desperately trying to remember the training session the doctor gave you after your trip to the beach, when everyone found out that more than one of the Iplier and Septic egos could not swim as well as they thought they could.

“Hello, you have reached the one and only Dr. Iplier. If this is about how you’re dying—”

“Not the time!”

You punctuated each word with a chest compression, trying to keep a steady rhythm going.

Because mannequins were not welcome in the Iplier ego household and proper CPR could do damage to a regular person, you’d had to practice on the androids. Having advice and “helpful” criticism come from the person you were supposed to be “saving” had been more than just a little…uncomfortable at the time, but now you could practically hear them again as you kept pressing on Dark’s chest, keeping the blood flowing.

_“Push harder, dude! That’s not going to do anything!”_

_“Keep your arms straight, don’t bend your elbows. Better a broken rib than death.”_

“Come—on,” you said, in between each compression as you released the chest. Keeping up the rhythm was important, 100 compressions per minute, even though right now you weren’t sure you had the strength to keep this up for nearly that long. “You’re—not—allowed—to—die—when—no one—else—is—here—you—stupid—Edgelord—”

Still no response.

You called Dark every name you could think of as you kept going, telling yourself that someone would have to come soon.

_No one is coming._

Someone would hear.

The windows shook again with another burst of rain and wind and you closed your eyes for a second before reopening them and focusing your attention on just keeping up the compressions.

This was Dark, after all. You’d seen him come back from a shot to the chest before, he’d stopped bleeding before he even reached the infirmary.

_He’s not going to wake up. You can see he’s still bleeding._

You tried not to look at the wound so close to your hands, tried to ignore the smell, tried not to wonder why he wasn’t getting better this time.

_What do you think did this to him? To Google?_

Someone would come. Your arms were shaking trying to keep up with the compressions and your vision blurred from the effort, but you had to keep trying.

_Just give up already._

“Wake—up—_please!”_

You flinched as you saw the lightning out of the corner of your eye, so strong that the lights in the room flickered in time to the thunder that almost immediately followed. You froze, hardly daring to breathe as something brushed against your hand and a voice that sounded like your own, but…wrong in every way suddenly spoke.

“You know that’s not going to work. Not that it isn’t fun to watch you try, but I had so many things planned for when you finally woke up! Since there’s no one around to interrupt at the moment, we can try again, try one last time to make you…smile.”

You looked up, trembling hands still on Dark’s chest, and saw…something. It looked like you, even down to the clothes you wore, but the eyes staring down at you were blank and hollow, two pools of darkness out of which something else looked out, something you’d seen before but behind a different Mask.

It smiled at you.

You don’t know how long you stared at that imitation of your own face, at those terrible and empty eyes, as it all sank in.

“You did this?” It had started as a question, but it just became disbelief by the time you said it. How was this thing back? What was it doing here, wearing your face?

Who else had it hurt?

You shuddered as another chill ran up and down your body and it laughed, a quiet, high-pitched laugh that settled into a low, humorless chuckle.

“Googles just break so easily, don’t you think?” It disappeared and reappeared near the android’s body, which it kicked with only a burst of static as a response. “Oh well, there’s always three more. I don’t have to have the full set, but it would be…Nice, you know? Guess you can’t have it all, but it still makes me smile to know that there are still so many people left to give masks to, so many happy faces just _waiting_ to happen.”

You kept one hand on Dark’s chest, where a thin wisp of darkness curled around your hand as though trying to hold on, and slowly reached out with the other to pick up your phone, hoping not to attract the Mask’s attention.

“There’s no need for that,” said that mockery of your voice, suddenly over your shoulder and far too close as a hand identical to your own reached down and snatched the device out of your hand. It walked around you, blank eyes trained on your face as, with one hand, it crushed the phone as though it were a ball of paper. “Our time together is going to be short enough as it is.”

“What do you want?” you asked, already trying to think of a way to get out of here. Then again, you didn’t know if you even had the strength to stand up on your own, and you couldn’t just leave Dark here with this…thing. What if it infected him like it did to the others before?

Why hadn’t it done that?

“Silly, how everyone keeps asking me that, like you don’t already know. My only desire is to make everyone happy, to give them masks like mine so they can all smile like they mean it. I just don’t understand why everyone has such a _problem_ with that. Like a certain district attorney who couldn’t just stay out of my way.” It put a hand on the side of your head and pushed, briefly, before laughing and continuing to pace around you. “Except they’re gone now, and it’s just you, and me, and we’re going to have so much fun.”

At its touch you shuddered as another chill hit you, the cold spreading inward until you could feel it in your bones, in your lungs, in your shaking, struggling breaths.

It was trying to infect you, just like it had the others before.

At that thought, your hand tightened on Dark’s wet shirt, feeling the trace of his aura grip your hand back, surprisingly warm. Your eyes darted for something, anything, as that chilling presence pressed down on you again and made your head swim.

“JUST SMILE FOR ME, Y/N.”

A laugh burst out of you before you could stop it, but the Mask tilted its head as you lunged forward and grabbed the bizarre stuffed animal lying near Dark and slowly, unsteadily got to your feet. Your hand found the zipper on the back, but your eyes were locked on to the creature wearing your face.

The Mask’s blank eyes stared at the animal, the smile becoming less pronounced as confusion took over. “Wh-what is that, a…Hippo? An alpaca, perhaps?”

“It’s a gift from Wilford Motherloving Warfstache,” you answered as you pulled the knife out of the stuffed animal.

The Mask stumbled backward, its black eyes widening in surprise, maybe, but its smile widened too. It looked you straight in the eye as the knife went in and laughed as though you were the funniest thing in the world.

“That’s how I react to a good stabbing, too.”

The laugh abruptly stopped as you both looked at the man standing at the doors to the infirmary. He was smiling, but there was no humor in his pink-stained brown eyes as, without an ounce of hesitation, he raised his gun and fired six rounds straight into the chest of the Mask version of you. When his gun clicked empty, he shrugged and threw it at its face, but the weapon clattered to the ground.

You were left holding the bloody knife as the Mask smiled one last time and disappeared, but after a second it fell to the ground. You would have followed, if Wilford hadn’t caught you in time.

“Whoa now, this doesn’t look like the kind of place to take a nap.” He looked around at all of the empty beds and added, “Not a single teddy bear to guard you while you sleep. Absolute disgrace. Good thing Dark brought your little buddy, huh?”

“Thank you,” you said, leaning hard on Wilford until your vision cleared again. Despite his confident tone, you could feel his hands shaking. “But we need to get out of here before it comes back. Dark—”

“That’s no place to sleep either!” Wilford cried out when he spotted Dark, but you felt his body tense. While you let go to help get Dark up onto his feet, Wilford bent down to pick up your dropped knife first, which he stuck in his belt loop before taking hold of Dark’s other arm.

Between the two of you, you managed to lift him up, but Dark’s head only lolled before coming to rest on Wilford’s shoulder. Wilford made as if to pick him up and carry him by himself, but he paused when he saw Dark’s aura.

It was still faint, but it had expanded into several smoke-like tendrils which had wrapped themselves around your hand, your arm, your waist, as though trying desperately to cling to something familiar. The pink in Wilford’s eyes grew slightly more pronounced but he said nothing, choosing instead to walk in step with you, the three of you making your way out of the infirmary and down the hall.

“I don’t know where to go,” you admitted. “I couldn’t get in touch with Dr. Iplier, and it’s already attacked at least one of the Googles. And the storm—”

As if in response to your words, another flicker of lightning came through the windows and you and Wilford both stopped short. In between you, Dark’s body tensed and his aura grew tighter around you, still warm in comparison to the Mask’s influence, but starting to become uncomfortable. Any tighter, and it would begin to leave bruises.

Wilford pulled Dark closer and smiled, trying too hard to sound his usual cheerful self. “Well, we won’t get anywhere just standing here. Come on!”

He started walking and you had to follow suit or be dragged along, but your head was still swimming, your breath ragged. Your arms were shaking so much that you were sure it was only Wilford’s support that kept Dark from dropping straight to the ground, and with each step you doubted if you would be able to take another.

“You three don’t look so good.”

Wilford and you stopped as the Mask appeared in the hall, blocking the way to the exit and to the rest of the house where the others might be. It still looked like you, but its shirt was stained crimson and its smile had parted to show its teeth in a far from friendly gesture. It also now had an equally stained scalpel in hand, lifted from the doctor’s infirmary.

“Now why don’t we just finish this?”

Wilford slipped out from under Dark’s arm and stood between you two and it, knife in hand and his eyes a vivid pink as he said, “Ooh, that almost sounded like a challenge.”

_Wilford can’t win against this thing, not by himself._

As soon as the thought crossed your mind, the Mask’s blank eyes met your own and its smile grew wider. It lunged forward, but as Wilford took a stab at it, it continued past him, ignoring the wound as it went straight for you and Dark.

Only to be stopped short, its arm straining and smile diminishing as it realized it was being held back. You couldn’t see what was stopping the Mask, and even Wilford seemed baffled until you saw his pink eyes glance to his left and a smile appear. You followed his gaze and saw a long mirror on the wall, and in it the reflection of Wilford and the Mask, and your own reflection holding the Mask’s arm in place.

They looked like you, but as they held back the Mask’s reflection, arms straining, their eyes flickered to meet your own and you saw the fear in the District Attorney’s eyes.

_They can’t hold them forever._

The whisper in your mind was similar to the Mask’s, but just different enough that you recognized it the second time.

_Please, Y/N, we need to do something._

You looked at Dark, whose body was limp and slipping to the ground as you struggled to hold him. As another shiver shook your core and your vision began to darken, you saw Wilford attack the Mask once again as the District Attorney struggled to hold it in place. It just laughed like it couldn’t feel the pain, or just didn’t care. Your arms trembled and Dark’s aura wrapped around them, warm but urgent.

_You just need to let me in._


	12. The Wilford Protocol

Wilford’s attacks weren’t doing anything to the Mask wearing your face, and the District Attorney in the mirror could only hold them back for so long. Already you could see their arms start to tremble as much as your own, which threatened to give out at any second under Dark’s weight. He did not move, head sagging and shoulders limp as you tried to support him, but his aura snaked around you as the whisper came again.

_Please, Y/N. Let me in, before it’s too late._

The Mask laughed and as your vision dimmed you saw the District Attorney’s grip on their arm holding the used scalpel start to slip, saw Wilford desperately try to wrap an arm around its neck only to have it twist out of his grip and grab his suspenders with a bloody hand and a smile. You met the eyes of the District Attorney and realized you had no other choice.

You let Dark in.

Lightning flashed and the lights in the hall went out as the thunder boomed around the house. When they returned, Wilford staggered back, one of his suspenders broken, and the District Attorney briefly disappeared from the mirror’s frame as the Mask wrenched its arm free from their grip. However, when it turned back to you and Dark to finish what it started, it paused and tilted its head to study what it saw.

A single figure stood there, features difficult to make out through the swirling, twisting aura that didn’t so much surround as fill from the inside out. In the darkness, several shapes writhed around the figure, trying to find their place in a body not meant for this. Dark’s body lay on the ground, discarded as your own straightened up and, as one, you and Dark cracked your neck and smiled.

“This again? Hahaha!” The high-pitched laugh did not match how those dark, empty eyes narrowed. “I thought killing you once would’ve been enough, but doing it again sounds _fun_—”

** _“Oh, just shut up already.”_ **

The voice that came out of your mouth was varied, a mix between your own and Dark’s that wasn’t fully in sync, not yet.

“You say you’ve been **_watching_** this whole time, then maybe you’ve heard of a **_little thing_** called the Wilford Protocol.”

The Mask paused and then its eyes widened. Behind it, Wilford grinned, his pink eyes meeting your own before you, Dark, and Wilford moved in unison toward the Mask.

It tightened its grip on the scalpel and lunged toward you, but Dark’s aura slapped the scalpel out of its hand and forced it back before it could even lay a finger on you. It stumbled, shaking its hand as if it actually felt something, and its laugh died when it realized it was once again held in place.

On the other side of the mirror, the District Attorney had latched on again, this time with arms thrown around its reflection to keep its arms pinned down at its side no matter how much it struggled. For the first time the Mask’s smile disappeared as it struggled, hollow eyes locked on you, on Dark, as Wilford grabbed it from behind and a swirl of pink and yellow energy flowed out of him, a bright and cheerful mirror of the darkness tinged with red, blue, and yes, green, that met it from the other side.

It screamed, a horrific, piercing sound that never should have come out of that body, but worse, as the District Attorney backed away in the reflection, as the two auras swept over the Mask and enveloped it completely, mixing into a bizarre pattern, it laughed. It laughed until the mass of conflicting powers disappeared.

Taking the Mask with it.

In the empty space where it once stood there was nothing but a heaviness in the air that was already fading, and a long, long silence.

Until Wilford broke it with a laugh, a real laugh filled less with humor and more with sheer relief as he clapped a hand down on your, on Dark’s shoulder and said, “That was some trick! I could hug you both at the same time, but I think our friend in the mirror is ready for you to go back to being two people again.”

** _“Why?”_ **

Wilford frowned and glanced at the mirror, where the District Attorney shook their head, before looking at you again.

“Uh, which of you said that?”

Dark opened and closed his, your hands, studying them. Cracks had formed on both palms, silver lines like shattering glass, but his aura was already following the lines like crackles of static, filling them in as if they were never there. This body, your body, _his_ body was frail, but he could fix that. Unlike last time, you weren’t trying to fight his presence. It certainly wasn’t his preferred form, but he could feel his aura spreading out and settling into place like it belonged here. You were still there, of course, but without the District Attorney you were so much…smaller. Manageable. And after so long on your own, fighting off the Mask’s influence, and everything you had to do, you were just so ready to rest.

Your, his hand went to his, your chest and there was a mix of green in his aura, lesser than the red and the blue but still there in the darkness. Why not rest with him?

“Dark?” Wilford asked warily as he moved in closer, pink eyes studying your, his face.

“More or less,” he answered with an easy smile. Like Celine, like Damien, like the entity itself, you would soon be a part of him, so much more than you ever were on your own. He, of course, wouldn’t change that much—there just wasn’t much of you left to be a real influence or to put up a fight, unlike when he had to rid himself of the District Attorney.

This, this was just _right_. You _belonged_ with him.

There was a flicker of brown in Wilford’s eyes, a flicker of uncertainty as he said, “I realize you were a bit banged up by that Mask fellow, but the doctor can fix you up, no problem. Believe me, I’ve sent him mend worse. But, uh, he might not be so happy with you walking around in our Y/N until then. And the others might get the wrong idea. You were just saying you wanted to get along with them, right?”

“Maybe I don’t **_want_** to get along with them, Wilford. Maybe I want what belongs to me, starting with Y/N. Maybe I just want to be in control, like I **_should_** be.” You/He scowled, the darkness filling your eyes as he added, “If they have a problem with that, then maybe they can take it out on me—and their **_precious_** Y/N.”

Wilford hesitated. There was always the ‘Wilford Protocol,’ of course, but if Dark was going to be banished again, then he wasn’t going alone. Not this time.

“Don’t worry, Wilford,” Dark said, his voice layered with yours. “You’ll get used to it. You did before.”

He started to turn away and felt a hand grab his, your wrist. With a sigh, you two turned together and said, “Wilford—”

But Wilford hadn’t moved.

In the mirror, the District Attorney had one hand on your, his wrist, their eyes locked on yours.

It was easy to shake their grip off as Dark stepped toward the mirror to face them. They could have joined him, they still could if they wanted to be with you so bad, but the District Attorney would just fight him like they had before. Their silent plea was echoed by Wilford behind you.

“Do you really want to do this?”

Dark smiled and turned to answer him, to tell him of course this is what he wanted, it was the best thing for you, you were better off with him, when you made one, single struggle. It was your first and likely only, as he felt your strength give out within him just as there was a flicker of green in the corner of his eye.

When Dark looked, he saw the mirror again, but instead of the District Attorney it was his, your reflection, together. It looked like you, your hands bloodied from what you had to do to try fight off the Mask. From saving him. Your eyes, black and uncaring with his aura, and your smile…

_You look like me._

He blinked, and it was the DA again, one hand against the glass as they silently pleaded. They didn’t seem to have even noticed what he saw, or what went through his mind as he closed your eyes.

And you opened them.

You felt Dark’s aura leave you suddenly, saw the darkness swarm toward the other body on the ground as a different kind of darkness filled your eyes. You swayed once and fell, but before the unconsciousness completely took you, you felt the hands that caught you.

And you heard the District Attorney’s voice, soft and full of relief.

_“There you are.”_

* * *

When you woke up, you found yourself once again in one of the infirmary beds, this time with a curtain drawn around it to block out some of the light. The storm seemed to have slowed to a steady rain while you were asleep, the thunder and lightning finally gone. You lay there for several seconds, listening to the rain patter against the ground outside, before you caught something out of the corner of your eye.

You tilted your head and smiled when you saw the stuffed animal sitting beside your pillow, standing guard. It was an effort to even reach out and pull the strange little creature close, but worth it as you smiled and said, “Hey there, Fitzwilford.”

The moment you pulled him to your chest, a memory stirred up, swift and briefly overpowering your other senses.

_The noise was almost overwhelming at the time, but now the ring of bells and voices all around were muffled, unimportant compared to the voice of the man walking through the carnival next to you._

_“Forgive me, friend, that was not the most…dignified thing I’ve ever done.”_

_“You knocked over all of the bottles and won a prize. What’s there to be sorry for?”_

_“You mean besides the fact I was trying to get the ball through the hoop in the next booth over?”_

_“It was certainly impressive.”_

_“The owners are still laughing.”_

_“So what if they laugh? You’re the one walking away with the bear, and it is still more dignified than half the things I have seen you do at parties.”_

_“Okay, I may be willing to concede that you have a point there, but between us I think I’m the lesser party animal.”_

_“What are you going to name it?” You saw the expression on his face and said, “Come on, you can’t just not give it a name. Look at that face!”_

_He shook his head but after a moment he chuckled and admitted, “Well, considering how I won it, it does rather remind me of an old friend, but I suspect he isn’t too fond of his own name. He would insist that we call him anything except for William these days.”_

_You stopped and leaned down to get a better look at the stuffed bear, considering its vibrant pink fur and button eyes before saying, “I don’t know, looks like a Fitzwilliam if I ever saw one.”_

_You looked up in time to see Damien’s smile before the memory faded._

There was a screech of metal on metal as the curtains were suddenly drawn back and the light from the rest of the room flooded in.

“You’re awake!” Abe said with relief, pulling you into a brief embrace before he quickly added, “Are you okay?”

“Y-yeah, I’m fine,” you said, blinking back the tears. On the surface it wasn’t a particularly meaningful or important memory. Pointless, really, if you were looking for anything more than two friends spending time together. But right now, to you, it was everything.

Because it meant the District Attorney was back with you again.

“Everything’s okay, we’re here,” Mark said, shoving the Detective out of the way so that he could kneel down next to your bed and look you in the eye. “Don’t strain yourself, okay?”

“I’m fine,” you said, holding Fitzwilford tight. Your arms shook and you realized that you were still physically exhausted, but that didn’t stop you from trying to sit up.

Only to have Wilford land so hard on the bed beside you that he threatened to bump you off into the floor on top of Mark.

“I’ll say you are! Barely even been an hour and you’re already up and raring to go!”

“Uh, not so sure about that,” you said before Wilford threw an arm around your shoulders and pulled you into a hug, holding you for a little longer than necessary before pulling back.

“They’re not going anywhere until they’ve had plenty of rest,” Dr. Iplier warned from a few beds away, where he was checking an IV running into the Host’s arm. The Host looked so much smaller without his coat, which was thrown over a nearby chair to dry, and his face was unnaturally pale even next to the fresh bandages around his eyes. The doctor caught your stare as he reached for a blood pressure cuff and said, “He’s going to be okay; after the transfusion is complete, the Host will just need some time to recover from what he’s been through today.”

“What happened to him?” you asked, and saw the doctor share a glance with Mark.

A lot, apparently, although no one was really sure what had happened in the cabin between the Host and the Mask. You also suspected that there was more to the story, judging by the way Abe’s face creased whenever the Mask was brought up, but didn’t press for answers. Your head was already spinning, and if not for Wilford keeping his arm around your shoulders and propping you up you might have fallen back to sleep despite everything.

“Well, the important thing is Smiley won’t be bothering us again,” Wilford said with a confidence that surprised you, even though you had to admit you weren’t sure where Wilford and Dark’s auras could have taken it. Somewhere bright and twisted, darkly sweet, probably; actually, it sounded exactly like the kind of place that thing would like. “Dark and I made sure of that.”

“Logical error detected.”

Google, the main unit in the blue shirt, looked up from his work on the damaged green unit when he realized everyone was looking his way. “…Apologies. I am reviewing the Green unit’s memory storage for anything worth saving before reset.”

“And we couldn’t have done it without Y/N,” Wilford added, pulling you in closer like you were the stuffed animal you had clasped in your arms.

And that was when you saw Mark and Abe’s reactions, or lack of them, and realized: Wilford hadn’t told them. Not everything, and certainly not about Dark possessing you.

Your eyes flickered toward the only other occupied bed in the infirmary, besides your own and the Host’s, where Dark lay sleeping. An IV was connected to his arm, and when you asked if it was for the pain, Dr. Iplier hesitated before answering, “…Sure.”

Then again, considering the last time Dark had been a patient of his, you couldn’t blame the doctor for taking some extra precautions.

You could remember the darkness. You could remember the way it filled you, the sounds you heard coming from within it, the way his presence pressed down on you, overbearing and inescapable. And you could remember the moment he looked in the mirror, remember what went through his mind before he let you go.

“I didn’t—” you started, but was interrupted as both Mark and Abe pulled you into a hug. The gesture was a little ruined when you pointed out, “You’re both soaked! What did you do, swim here?”

They laughed and joked about the traffic, but you noticed now that Abe’s coat was drying on the back of one of the chairs alongside the Host’s, that Dr. Iplier’s shoes squelched as he moved around the infirmary, and even Google’s hair was still damp from the rain.

They had all done everything they could to get back here as fast as possible, storm or no storm. And, even after you fell back to sleep, they were slow to leave. It took Dr. Iplier cajoling just to get Mark and Abe to go and look for some dry clothes, and on his way out the Detective lingered by your bed before leaving your wallet on the nightstand, all of the ego cards inside carefully put back into place alongside the picture of you and him together on a case.

Wilford was a bit harder to get rid of, and on his way out he stopped by Dark’s bed to study his sleeping face, a flicker of pink in his eyes.

Google watched him leave, soon followed by the doctor in search of some dry clothes of his own, before he sat back from the broken unit. He knew the other Google would be simple enough to fix, but that wasn’t what made his motors whir and hum as he thought.

The Mask had been so focused on making sure that the Green unit could not send out a signal or move, but it hadn’t touched his other functions. Such as the continuous background recording, the android’s “memory” that could be accessed and backed up in moments of failure like this one.

He had been recording ever since he entered the infirmary, even when the Mask attacked him, even when he went on standby mode. Enough to know that when you, Dark, and Wilford left the infirmary, Dark was in no state to support himself, much less assist in the banishing of the so-called Maskiplier.

Google looked from Dark to you, the lenses of his glasses flaring as he realized that there was more to the story before Wilford returned, first carrying your body and then Dark’s and putting you both in your beds before the others returned.

Google calculated his options and possible outcomes before saving the other unit’s memories to a folder on his personal drive and starting the reset. He waited alone in the silent infirmary as the process ran for several minutes before pulling out one particular segment of that video recording and letting it play.

“you—stupid—Edgelord!” Google smiled as you went into a litany of name calling and insults all directed at Dark, such as “angsty emo drama king.”

Picking a favorite to be his new alert tone would be difficult, for sure.

* * *

One day, not long after the rain stopped and everything returned to more or less normal in the Iplier house, the Host surprised you by suggesting a walk. He rarely left the house, but he had been more open to the idea ever since your trip to the beach house, so you didn’t think much of it as, together, you followed the trail through the trees behind the ego house.

“Let me know if you need to rest, okay?” you said and the Host smiled and told you the same. Even after a few days of good sleep, neither of you were fully back to your old selves, but it was a nice day and cool in the shade of the trees.

It was a quiet, peaceful walk, the Host’s constant narration silent as he walked with his hand in yours, trusting you to guide him along the trail until you found the place where it split in two and asked him which way to go, left or right.

The Host did not answer immediately, and when he did, he briefly squeezed your hand as if making sure you were still there.

“Left.”

When you stopped again, he knew you had reached the clearing in the woods. Where you could see the cabin waiting ahead.

“Host?”

He took a breath and said, “There is something the Host wishes to show Y/N.”

He led the way, barely needing his narration to guide you to the door, barely paying attention to the crunch of glass from the broken window when he stepped aside.

“This is where…it…”

You trailed off and the Host nodded, but that wasn’t why he brought you here today. He started to walk forward and you stopped him with a quick, “Wait!”

He couldn’t suppress a shudder at the sound of the metal against the wooden floorboards as you picked up the baseball bat he had almost stepped on, but he continued to walk further into the cabin, one hand reaching out to trail over the typical random junk that might be found in a storage shed.

“This cabin has been here for years, but many of the egos don’t even know it exists. Or didn’t, until recent events. It held a significance for Darkiplier, once, but to the Author it was a second home. The Author came here often to write, away from the _distractions_ of the others. Is Y/N…aware of the Author?”

“I saw his videos, the one from where I came from,” you admitted.

The Host stopped and nodded, as if confirming to himself before he spoke again.

“Then Y/N is aware that the Author’s stories often included real people as the characters, using them to act out and live through whatever he commanded. In this place, he—_I_ did so many terrible things. After the Author failed Wilford, the Colonel, after the Author became the Host he…I never wanted to come back here again.”

He paused and you said, “That was a long time ago. You aren’t the same person—”

“But I am.” The Host took a long, shuddering breath and said, “The Host has told himself that he isn’t, he has pretended to be better for Y/N’s sake, for his own, but he hasn’t changed. He tells himself that the stories he tells on his radio show only happen to the people who deserve it, that sometimes bending what happens to Y/N or to the other egos is for their own good, that he’s different from…from _him_.”

Without even thinking about it, the Host sank into the chair behind him, where it had been for him so many times as the Author, and put a hand to his bandaged eyes.

“But the differences aren’t enough, not really. Y/N needs to know that neither of us deserve a second chance. The Host and—”

He stopped short when he felt your hand on the top of his head.

“The Host,” you said, imitating his narration, “is Y/N’s friend. I don’t know the Author, but I know the Host. I know everything the Host has done to help me and the others ever since I came here. I know that he’s even saved my life more than once. And I know that, no matter what you’ve told yourself, ‘neither of you’ are past the point of second chances.”

“…The Host is pleased to hear that,” he said in his usual monotone, as if you hadn’t clearly heard him swear at that last thing you said. Still, he couldn’t help but smile when you knelt down and pulled him into a hug, knowing that you meant every word, that you were willing to wait here with him until he believed that.

Even knowing that you would still mean it, even if you knew he hadn’t been referring to the Author then. Even knowing that outside of the cabin, someone else had arrived in the clearing and walked not to the door but around to the roses growing on one side.

Dark knelt, careful not to actually let his knee touch the ground, and studied the roses.

_Pointless things, really._

His fingers reached out and brushed against one rose in particular. Its outer petals were black as though burned, but now that it had started to bloom the inner petals were revealed to be a mix of a deep, crimson red, and a blue so dark it could almost be mistaken for black until the sun touched it. And, running through the center of it all, a faint, easy to miss green.

Then again, he admitted to himself, even pointless things might be worth keeping around.

His smile faded when he heard the crack of a twig breaking and turned to see the King of the Squirrels freeze at the end of the tree line, Eric Derekson clearly visible as he froze as well, one hand on the king’s robe as though to pull him back out of sight.

Speaking of pointless things, Dark thought to himself as he stood and cracked his neck.

_“Explain.”_

Only to immediately regret it when he then had to listen to the ridiculous story that followed, involving Eric, an apparently homicidal pigeon, and far too many squirrels. As it went on, Dark’s aura began to crack despite his best efforts. There was nothing he could do to stop it in time.

Inside of the cabin, the Host couldn’t help but smile as his narration followed the story, silent until he couldn’t hold it in any longer. At the same time Dark’s aura snapped, he broke completely.

And they both laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! This is the last longer form story in the Can You Wake Up? series, with only a few short stories left to tie up the rest of the series. I'm sorry for taking so long to move everything over here to AO3!
> 
> I also want to thank BlackAquoKat here, for suggesting the stuffed animal names Fitzwilliam and Fitzwilford, which were too perfect.


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